


The Goddess of Virginity

by Confection, Meilan_Firaga



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers Tower, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25818013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Confection/pseuds/Confection, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/pseuds/Meilan_Firaga
Summary: Home is a foreign word to Natasha Romanov. Between her past and her work for SHIELD she's never had time to build one, and she certainly doesn't know how. Now, with the completion of Avengers Tower, she might finally have a chance to try. And, if her best friend has anything to say about it, building a home might include finding someone to share it with.Darcy Lewis can be at home just about anywhere, and that's definitely been an asset over the years. But if anywhere happens to include a swanky high-rise apartment and peace of mind for her bestie/boss about the Norse god that keeps forgetting to call? Even better. She's excited at the prospect of having a more permanent base now that Jane is working for the Avengers.A fun, simple romance set after the first Avengers film.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Maria Hill, Darcy Lewis/Natasha Romanov, Helen Cho/Jane Foster (Marvel), Helen Cho/Jane Foster/Thor, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Comments: 7
Kudos: 135
Collections: Marvel Femslash Big Bang 2020





	1. Change in the Air

**Author's Note:**

> Fic by: Meilan_Firaga  
> Art by: Confection

“We should get tattoos,” Clint Barton mused aloud as he nocked another arrow. He drew the bow back, aimed at the security pad one of the goons was running at, and let it fly. A shower of sparks erupted and he could see the goon swearing. “Something matchy. For friendship.”

Across the warehouse, her thighs wrapped tight around the shoulders of the man she was currently punching in the head, Natasha snorted. She twisted her leg, performing a complex maneuver that flipped her bodily around the agent’s torso, the heel of her other foot colliding with his crotch, before she flung him to the ground. “Seriously?” she huffed. With a flick of her wrist she threw a bolt of electricity out of her spider bites at another agent when they rushed her, dodging to one side when they pitched forward. “You want us each to have half of a BFF heart?”

“I was thinking something a little less nineties Nickelodeon.” An arrow sailed past Natasha’s head into the chest of the last goon standing. She turned in a slow circle, making sure the room was clear. “Turtle doves, maybe?”

“Nineties Nickelodeon is too much, but nineties Christmas films are right on the money?”

The bickering continued as they swept the room and searched the bodies. The two of them had broken away from the rest of the Avengers three days ago to pursue this particular group of criminals when they’d ventured off from a terrorist hostage situation with a truck full of suspicious crates. It had been a wild ride of stealth movements, border hopping, and one memorable afternoon where they’d pretended to be married tourists from the midwest in order to tail one of the guys through a crowded market. The tattoo conversation was just par for the course at this point.

“So, are you looking forward to it?” Clint ventured when they’d wrapped up the sweep and were cataloging the handful of crates that had been brought in. The cargo was mostly arms and ammunition—the standard black market fare of the cheap and suspicious.

“Looking forward to what?” Natasha asked absently, her fingers ticking off the number of automatic rifles in one of the crates. “The tattoo thing is your idea. I don’t see why I should be the one looking forward to it.”

Clint huffed out a little laught of his own. “You will be when we hash out a design, but that’s not what I meant.” 

In truth she knew exactly what he meant, but she’d been pushing it from her mind for the better part of a week. It still seemed too good to be true, like the whole thing was going to up and disappear the moment she acknowledged it. Stark’s shining beacon of clean energy, the tower they’d nearly destroyed in the fight against Loki when he invaded New York with his alien army, was finally restored from the mountain of damages. He hadn’t replaced the lighted letters of his last name on top of the skyscraper like they all thought he would. Instead, all that remained was the lone letter A that survived the battle. He called it an advertisement—and a warning—for everyone about exactly who would be in residence. She and Clint had asked if they could share an apartment and the billionaire hadn’t raised too much of a fuss. He’d made plenty of comments and given his share of raised eyebrow glances, but he didn’t say no. In fact, he’d solved the matter by calling his contractor back in and having him combine the two apartments that had previously been set aside so they could live separately.

The decision pushed their move in date back farther than the rest of the team. Steve and Bruce had gotten settled in before this latest mission saw the team reunited in the field, but she and Clint had been continuing as they always had, moving from one safehouse and one mission to the next. It was going to be so different, this having a regular place thing. Clint was better at it than she was. He’d had a number of apartments—most of them gross bachelor pads with at least one stack of pizza boxes being used as a chair—and even owned a building where he was the mostly absent landlord. Natasha, though, didn’t have much experience in that department. Now that she really stopped and thought about it, she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. Did she need a houseplant? Were there requirements to making a household work? She mentally started a list of things she was going to have to ask Clint on their trip back to New York.

“I’m… uncertain,” she admitted quietly. Clint didn’t respond, waiting out the rest of her explanation in that patient way he always had. “It would be easier if this were a firefight or a barracks situation. I know my footing in that kind of scenario.”

“I get that.” She didn’t have to look at him to know that he was nodding. “Well, it’s going to be probably one of the most secure buildings on the planet, and Stark’s filthy rich so I imagine the perks will be great.” He pushed himself up on top of one of the crates they’d already checked, laying back on its lid with his head pillowed on his hands. “Probably have a dozen swimming pools to choose from. We’ll be spoiled rotten in under a week.”

“If the hot water situation is as good as the number of pools you might actually have to bathe regularly.”

“I know. How am I going to survive it?” He was smiling up at the ceiling, his feet kicking against the crate. “Are we done here? We probably need to either check in soon or call our ride.” There was expectation and anticipation in his tone. For all that she was worried, Clint was ready for this next step. That, at least, was enough to reassure her.

“Yes.” Natasha let the lid of the crate she’d just finished drop closed and reached for the locator in one of her suit’s secure pouches. She breathed deeply as she typed in the code for evac and activated their beacon. There was a curious fluttering in her stomach, and it took a moment for her to realize that it was a mix of nerves and excitement. She could do this. “Let’s go home.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

The private jet from Norway to New York didn’t make up for the absolute shit fit that Jane had thrown when she found out Thor had been planetside and never called, but it was definitely a step in the right direction. Darcy propped her feet up on the swanky footrest, wiggling her adorable baby seal slippers in happiness. She hadn’t bothered to do much with her appearance before they left for the airport, but she’d expected some crooked looks at her choice of footwear at the very least. She and Jane had done enough flying that she was well aware of what kind of bitchy stares she was inviting. Airports were a strange but incredibly judgemental place. Many a ticketing agent had turned their nose up at Darcy’s determination to spend her travel hours at the height of comfort and Jane’s typically scatterbrained approach to dressing. So, the pair of them had been prepared to weather the snotty judgement of everyone they encountered.

Instead, they’d received star treatment. They were greeted at the main doors and ushered through express security to a private gate where Stark’s sumptuous plane awaited them. They were even assured that Jane’s truckload of equipment back in the states was being handled by a private baggage company that treated even the most questionably duct taped instruments with the utmost care. After all, for all of his tailored suits and fancy cars Tony Stark was still supposedly a fly-by-the-seat-of-his pants kind of engineer.

Jane made the odd comment here and there, but for the most part she didn’t seem to notice too much. She alternated between having her nose buried in her notebook and grumbling under her breath about inconsiderate gods who couldn’t even be bothered to send a freakin’ postcard. Sometimes she did both at once. Darcy loved her thunder bro, but even she had to admit that he screwed the pooch this time. Sure, he’d sent a friend with an offer of virtually limitless funding, a travel budget, fancy New York apartments, and the chance to work with/for actual facts superheroes. And dental. Most people would probably say that was infinitely better than a postcard or whatever, and they weren’t entirely wrong. But if he had time to set all this in motion and, if rumors were to be believed, to grab shawarma with the rest of the world saving crew he probably could have found time for a phone call.

Though, she wasn’t entirely sure he knew what a phone was. It hadn’t really come up when he dropped in on them in New Mexico.

It wasn’t long after they were in the air that Jane dozed off, and Darcy couldn’t have been happier to see the woman finally get a little rest. Prior to their trip she’d been on a research bender that passed seventy-two hours—a way of distracting herself from the hurt she felt over Thor’s lack of communication. She’d been pushing herself to the brink ever since the news stations had started reporting that Thor took his brother back to Asgard to face justice, and any amount of sleep she could get on the seven hour flight was desperately needed.

Darcy didn’t sleep on planes. It was funny because she could sleep just about anywhere else, but something about being in a pressurized sardine can at thirty-thousand feet kept her just anxious enough to stay awake. Normally, that meant several good hours of people watching on a crowded commercial flight. In the magic of a private Stark Industries plane she’d done everything from reading an entire romance novel (absolute trash—she bookmarked it to read again later) to seeing how many origami cranes she could stack on a sleeping Jane (seventeen before she got bored of all the folding) to popping into the back cabin to talk to their security escort. They were all too stuffy to entertain her for too long, so in the end she’d found her way onto the plane’s wifi and taken to the old college standby of YouTube exploration. She was halfway through a fascinating video all about decorating cakes to look like rocks that had been cracked open to reveal crystals inside when the pilot came on the overhead to give the order to strap in because they were on their final approach. She closed the laptop and tucked it into her messenger bag just as the plane dipped into some thick cloud cover.

“Christ, was that an original Macbook? That thing should be in a museum.”

To say that Darcy jumped at the sudden unfamiliar voice wouldn’t quite be accurate. She definitely flinched. There was an undignified squawk. Her eyes got about as big as golf balls, which was useful since she managed to flail just enough to knock her glasses askew. Some sort of holographically projected screen was hovering in front of her chair, and Tony Stark himself was looking at her from the other end of whatever communication line had just been opened.

“Has anyone ever told you that calls are meant to ring before the talky bits start?” Darcy demanded, straightening her glasses with what little dignity she could muster and pressing one hand to her chest in a futile attempt to calm her racing heart. On the screen, Stark waved a dismissive hand.

“Doesn’t count when I’m calling a vehicle I own.” Now that she was looking at him properly she could see that he was in some sort of sleek workshop. His sleeves were pushed up, and she was pretty sure there was a streak of oil or grease on his forehead. “And you’re avoiding my question. What was that dinosaur you were… actually, what can you even do on that thing? Does it have a rotary dial? Little spools inside that run yards and yards of tape for processing?”

She narrowed her eyes. “I’ve had Dolores since I was in high school, and I will not have her besmirched in such a manner,” she told him with a haughty sniff. 

“Sorry,” Tony said, his eyes dancing with mirth. “I don’t want you to think I’m in the habit of disrespecting the elderly like that. She’s clearly a very hard worker. I just didn’t expect to see her in the company of the assistant to a top notch astrophysicist.”

“Well, when you’re an unpaid intern you kinda have to make do.”

At that, Stark’s grin became absolutely shark-like. “JARVIS,” he called over one shoulder, “make a note. We gotta get Lewis updated to the current century. Full package. No slacking.” 

“I’ll place the order, sir,” a disembodied voice replied. Tony turned his attention back to her.

“Fixed!” He clapped his hands together. “You and your boss aren’t working for peanuts anymore, kid. You’re both getting the full upgrade.”

“Be careful making promises you can’t keep,” with one eyebrow raised Darcy gave him her best challenging stare. “One of us in this conversation knows exactly how attached Jane is to her duct taped thingamabobs and it ain’t you, Richie Rich.”

That brought out a full throated laugh. “Oh, Lewis, you are going to be a delight to have in the labs.” He shook his head, wiping grease from his hands on a towel he pulled from somewhere out of sight. “I called because JARVIS let me know that your flight’s coming in soon. There’ll be a car waiting for you at the airport to bring you both straight to the Tower. I know Foster’s bound to want to travel with what equipment you guys brought with you, but I’m hoping you can convince her to let my guys handle it. Pep wants to treat you to dinner—catered here, no need to change out of your jammies—before we get you settled in your apartments. We’ll worry about the labs tomorrow.”

“I think I can sort something out.” Deciding to try her luck and see just how far she’d be able to run with their new benefactor, Darcy gave him a winning smile. “All it’ll cost you is enough fairy lights to give whatever corner of Jane’s lab I get to call a home a cozy little glow.”

“Deal. You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into with demands like that.”

He hung up before she could reply, and Darcy had a brief moment to wonder whether she’d just made an enemy or a new best friend. Then, the plane dropped below the clouds and the bright lights of New York City caught her eye. Avengers Tower was visible even from way up in the sky, its arc-reactor powered lights a brighter kind of white than all the buildings around it. Whatever new adventure was on the horizon, she was more than ready for it.


	2. Home Sweet Stark's Super-Extra Tower

No amount of joking about how the rich lived could have prepared Darcy for what she got from the moment their car took her and Jane into the underground parking garage beneath the Tower. There was only one level of parking, and their driver had to place his hand on some kind of scanner to even get the door open. Once they were out of the vehicle they were greeted by the statuesque beauty that was Pepper Potts. Darcy had always loved redheads, and even without knowing the woman was a powerhouse of corporate know-how and  _ get-shit-done _ attitude she could see why someone as high profile as Iron Man was completely gone on her. She had nothing but warm smiles for them as they shuffled into the elevator in their pajamas with battered luggage in hand. They made small talk all the way up to Pepper and Tony’s massive apartment just below the floors dedicated to the Avengers and Avengers related personnel (which she and Jane apparently were). 

Tony didn’t join them until they were halfway through the superb Indian takeaway, and when he did it was immediately apparent that he and Darcy were going to be fast friends. They fell into a pattern of quick-witted banter so easily it was like they’d been friends for years. He switched effortlessly between pop culture references with her and targeted questions to Jane about her research that kept the sleepy astrophysicist just engaged enough in the conversation to stay awake. 

As first introductions went, it was pretty stellar. 

Dinner was followed by Pepper leading Darcy and Jane to their apartments on Thor’s floor. Their things had apparently been delivered while they were eating. On the way she introduced them to JARVIS, explaining the security protocols and which of the Tower’s restricted elevators they had access to. They walked Jane to her place first. It was a one-bedroom with spartan furnishings, but all the scientist seemed to care about at that moment was the king bed. Darcy got her tucked in and quietly explained to Pepper on the way out about the three day bender of cosmic phenomena they’d just wound down. Pepper, it turned out, could commiserate. While they made their way down the hall to Darcy’s apartment she told a spectacular tale about Tony going without sleep for nearly a week while trying to solve some sort of problem with one of his suits that ended with them having to buy a Denny’s and make a public apology to the city of San Diego.

Darcy’s apartment was better appointed than any other place she’d lived in her entire life. Her battered suitcases looked almost tiny against the open living room, and her mind was on overdrive at the possibilities for decorating. When Pepper handed her a StarkPad that had been charging on the kitchen counter and explained that there was an account set up so she could purchase the furnishings and other household items she needed—all on the personnel housing budget, which did not have a listed limit—she’d nearly cried. Okay, so she’d really cried. Big tears, lots of sniffles, and Pepper had just given her the biggest, most understanding hug right there in what was now her kitchen. When she finally pulled herself together the other woman threw her a conspiratorial wink, pulled a spoon from one of the drawers, and grabbed something out of the mostly empty freezer.

“Call it a little welcome present from somebody who understands how stressful stubborn geniuses can be.” Still sniffling, Darcy found herself accepting the spoon and a pint of ice cream from a woman that she had just decided was the coolest human being on the planet. “Thor assured me that you prefer ‘the chunkiest of monkeys’.”

“Bless him,” Darcy hiccupped. “One of these days he’ll learn how to talk like a person instead of a Shakespeare reject.” She tugged off the top and offered the spoon and pint to Pepper first. “You want some?”

Pepper waved her off. “If Tony finds out I’ve had ice cream without him he’ll concoct some horrible story about me cheating on him with you and dramatically rail about it for the next week.”

“I’ll play along if you will.” She shoved a spoonful of the ice cream in her mouth and nearly groaned at the decadence. “I wouldn’t kick you out of bed for eating crackers.” Pepper actually flushed just the slightest bit, and Darcy did a little internal victory dance that she’d gotten so much of a reaction to her flirty little jab.

“As funny as it could be, we really shouldn’t fuel his girl on girl fantasies.” 

“Well,” Darcy sighed dramatically, “I guess I’ll just have to avoid bringing dates back to the Tower.” She was so focused on the ice cream, delighted at the little sugar rush and the incredible life she’d apparently just fallen into, that she completely missed the calculating smile that crossed Pepper’s face.

“I wouldn’t go that far.” The CEO leaned back against the kitchen counter. “There are cameras in every part of the Tower, but for privacy’s sake JARVIS won’t turn them on in a living space unless the occupant is unresponsive or in danger. You can get away with a lot in your own personal space, and certain parts of the Tower have a privacy mode that you can engage as well.”

Darcy laughed. “If Jane ever slows down enough for me to date I’ll definitely remember that.”

“I can’t say much about that,” Pepper mused. “I just ended up dating my mad scientist. Do you want my advice?”

“Yes, please.”

“Eat as much of that ice cream as you feel like, then go run a bath. I made sure to have some of the good toiletries brought up. Relax, get cosy, and sleep for as long as you want.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re an angel?”

Pepper’s musical laugh followed her to the door. “We’ll plan the lab tour for around ten. That should give you lots of time to really get settled.”

After she was gone, Darcy stood in the kitchen eating out of the pint of chunky monkey for a long time. It was all so much so quickly, and she was definitely feeling the effects of her sleepless transatlantic flight. The digital clock on her new stove (a thing of beauty that already had her making dinner party plans) said it was barely after eight. Her muscles were sore from the tension of travel, and she had that grimey feel that settled on your skin when you’d been, for lack of better terms, on the road. The bath Pepper suggested was starting to sound like a great idea, but she was a little worried she might fall asleep and drown. The thought had barely crossed her mind when she wanted to slap herself on the forehead.

“Hello?” she called tentatively. It echoed just a bit in the empty room. “JARVIS?” The response was immediate.

“Yes, Miss Lewis?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Do you have to call me that?”

“I can refer to you by whichever title you would prefer.”

“Can’t you just call me by name? Darcy?”

“Of course, Darcy.” On the one hand, it was probably crazy to imagine a note of patience in that voice. On the other, JARVIS was built by Tony Stark. There was no telling what he could do. “I assume you had another reason to call me besides nomenclature preference.” Sass, apparently, was totally on the table.

“Yeah,” she admitted, tabling the wonders of artificial intelligence for a more awake kind of time. “I’m thinking about taking Pepper’s suggestion for a bath, but I’m tired and a little worried I might fall asleep and drown. Do you have a way of making sure that doesn’t happen?”

“I will strictly monitor your biometrics for the duration of your bath. Would you like me to start the water for you?”

“You can do that?” she asked incredulously. This whole smart apartment thing was getting better by the moment.

“I am capable of handling a number of tasks around your home.” As JARVIS spoke the StarkPad on her counter lit up. “I’ve taken the liberty of uploading a list of commonly used home tasks that I can perform to your StarkPad.” The sound of running water suddenly echoed through the apartment from the direction of the bedroom/bathroom suite. “I’ve turned on the water with a temperature of 92 degrees. Studies indicate this temperature is ideal for a warm bath.”

Darcy tucked the half-eaten pint of ice cream back in the freezer, tossed her dirty spoon in the sink, and practically melted against the counter with the StarkPad clutched to her chest. “My dude, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

“I look forward to it, Darcy. I feel I should point out that while I can start the water I am not capable of adding the bath products Miss Potts mentioned.”

“Got it. Taking my happy ass to the bathroom.” She paused before she crossed the bedroom threshold, pulling the StarkPad away from her chest. “This thing isn’t going to fry if the bathroom gets steamy, is it?”

“Commercial StarkPads are waterproof to a depth of fifteen feet,” JARVIS assured her, “but the StarkPads given to Avengers level residents are manufactured from similar technology to that which operates Mr. Stark’s Iron Man suits. I estimate they will function at most depths reachable by humans.”

Almost breathless with the excitement of having such tech in her hands, Darcy kicked off her slippers and made her way to the bathroom only to stop dead in her tracks when she got a look at the massive soaker tub that was steadily filling up with steaming water. “This place gets better by the minute.” Pepper’s selection of bath products included an obscene number of bubble baths, and Darcy added a single drop of every one. By the time the tub was full it was topped by a writhing mass of multicolored bubbles and a scent she could only describe as ‘sniff the rainbow.’ After checking to make sure she’d have a towel when she got out, Darcy pulled her hair up in a sloppy bun on the top of her head, shucked off her gross travel pjs, and sank into the water. JARVIS was not wrong about the temperature. 

~*~*~*~*~*~

~*~*~*~*~*~

The quinjet finally landed at Avengers Tower at some ungodly late night hour, stopping just long enough to refuel and for Clint and Natasha to disembark before it took off to whatever mission locale was next on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s docket. Tony had a new quinjet for Avengers use, but old habits die hard and they’d called in an evac from the organization they’d been working for longer to get them back to New York. They’d gotten to hear all about it when their pilot had radioed in for landing permissions. Apparently Tony was hurt that they hadn’t called him. At least, he was right up until the moment that Clint called him ‘Mom’ and asked if he had to get permission to have Nat sleep over. If she hadn’t been so tired Natasha would have laughed long and loud over that whole fiasco. Even as exhausted as she was it certainly made her smile.

The cool night air felt like a friendly hug as it wrapped around her on the landing platform, the breeze ruffling her hair. There was a sense of relief settling on her shoulders that she wasn’t sure how to categorize. The last time she’d been at the Tower was after everything with Loki was wrapped up. It was still a decimated mess then, shattered glass and broken furniture all over the upper floors. Now, looking up the curved glass that stretched into the sky, she felt a sense of belonging that wasn’t all that different from how she felt when they’d all fought as a team. For all that she’d been uncertain when Clint asked her feelings before, she knew that this was where she was supposed to be. 

To her surprise, it wasn’t Tony that met them on the platform. Instead, Steve was waiting, the sleeves of a plaid shirt rolled up to his elbows and his hands in the pockets of a pair of chinos.

“Have a good flight?” he asked as they made their way onto the elevator.

Natasha shrugged. “It wasn’t bad.”

“Usual S.H.I.E.L.D. fare,” Clint added, rolling the shoulder he’d been sleeping on since somewhere over Greenland. “Grumpy pilot and seats built for function instead of comfort.”

“If you let Tony hear you say that he’s going to lecture you for an hour about why you should have let him send a ride.” Steve pushed his thumb into one of the elevator buttons—probably unnecessarily—and leaned back against the wall. “Hell, he probably would have found a way to get you on the luxury jet with Doctor Foster and her assistant.”

The name was familiar, and Natasha searched through her tired memory to place it. “That’s the woman Thor landed on in New Mexico, right?” she asked Steve.

“Yep!” Clint chirped before the other man could open his mouth. “She read Coulson the riot act when we confiscated her equipment.” He scratched the back of his neck, grinning at the memory. “Her assistant’s the one that cooked up that fake I.D. he used to try and get to the hammer. Pretty good forgery for something she did on her laptop. Especially since she did it with a picture she took in a diner on a phone that was already a couple years old.” 

Nat was impressed. Thor’s fake I.D. tale had made the rounds at S.H.I.E.L.D. The rumor was that it had fooled their tech until the third check. There were people who’d been in the fake identification business for a long time that couldn’t make that happen. Hell, there were people who’d been working for S.H.I.E.L.D. for decades, knew everything the system would be looking for, and still couldn’t fool it once. Still, she let her mind be carried back to the present.

“I’m sure we’ll all get to meet them soon enough,” Steve said in his no-nonsense captain voice, which meant he was keen to change the subject. Probably because it was late enough that dawn wasn’t too far from the horizon. “For now, I’m supposed to get you two settled into your apartment. Tony said he furnished it to your specifications.”

_ That _ made Natasha raise an eyebrow. “Did he now?” She leveled a ruthless glare at Clint, but he just grinned back at her.

“What’s the matter, Nat?” he teased. There was no telling what kind of a list he’d given Stark for what their apartment needed, and with his love of all things ridiculous Tony would go along with every single one of them. She could be about to walk into a circus tent with the beds in lion cages. With actual lions as bedmates. “Don’t trust me?”

Sensing that he was going to lose his audience again, Steve cleared his throat. In his most authoritative tone he ran them through all the basics of life in the Tower. He introduced them to JARVIS, which fascinated Clint and had zero effect on Natasha. She and the AI were already acquainted from her time as Stark’s assistant, Natalie. The StarkPads he mentioned were something new, but she figured she would be able to make sense of it quickly enough. Though she’d never admit it to his face, Tony was rather gifted at creating intuitive user interfaces. The entrance to their apartment was on the same floor as Steve’s, and he pointed out their door from the safety of his own. 

“Get some rest,” he ordered when they made their way past him to the door. “We’ll figure out training regimens sometime tomorrow.” 

The moment the door closed behind him Natasha didn’t waste a second. She dropped her bag to the hallway floor and leaped onto Clint’s back, legs encircling his chest with her ankles locked together. Clint was quick to respond, dropping his own duffle just fast enough to jam his forearms into her attempted choke hold and keep his airways open.

“What sort of ‘specifications’ did you give, Clint?” she asked, her tone steely.

“Aw, Nat, no,” he whined, wiggling a bit to try and loosen her grip. “I didn’t do anything bad. I swear!” With a sudden, rough maneuver he gripped her by the thighs and turned a somersault in the middle of the hallway that made her head spin. “We couldn’t just come home to an empty apartment!” 

The ensuing tussle didn’t end until Steve popped his head back out of his apartment door with a too-friendly reminder that it was after three in the morning and  _ some people _ might want to catch some sleep. Nat slowly peeled herself off of Clint and, eyes still narrowed, retrieved the bag she’d thrown aside. Clint rolled his eyes at continued disgruntled expression, but similarly collected his own bag and forged ahead to their door. “No faith,” he grumbled. 

What she saw when he pushed the door open and dragged her inside was enough to stop her breath. 

The apartment was a combination of one bedroom units on two different floors. Much of the floorplan seemed to be open, and the whole central section of the apartment was open up to the ceiling of the second floor. Directly across from the entry door was a living area with an entire wall made of that beautiful curving glass she’d been admiring from the landing pad, crystal clear windows giving a breathtaking view of the city. Most of its flooring was dark hardwood, but there was a sunken seating area with a fireplace reminiscent of 1970s conversation pits where she could see plush tan carpeting peeking up from beneath the curved black leather sectional. On the right side of the room was a partial dividing wall beyond which she could see a bit of a room lit only by the lights of the city—the massive windows apparently continued through into the new space. Closer to the door and away from the dividing wall a set of metal stairs led up to a catwalk that stretched across the upper floor which seemed to have a loft space to the right and a room with a closed door on the left. There was a small kitchen with a floor of beautiful black tile to Natasha’s immediate left with a counter island that could seat four. The rest of the counters formed an L-shape with its shorter side tucked into an alcove. The left-hand wall of the room also featured a closed door to what she guessed was one of the bedrooms.

None of it was decorated in the frantic manner she expected. Instead of looking like it had been designed by a colorblind monkey the common areas were rather tasteful. As Clint moved through the room—turning on more lights and chattering a mile a minute about one thing or another—she began to take notice of the things that might have been Clint’s specifications. Beyond the staircase and catwalk, the partial dividing wall was a stacked stone accent feature. On closer inspection she could tell that the stones were a cleverly disguised climbing wall. At different points around the room a series of high vantage nests had been installed. What looked to be a tightrope was strung across the living room about eight feet below the ceiling, anchored on each side by a narrow platform. Though they weren’t currently swinging about, she was pretty sure there were retractable trapeze swings pulled up into the ceiling. There was an aerial trapeze set up in one corner. 

It may have been tastefully decorated, but the functional bits of the circus she’d expected were definitely there. And she didn’t hate it. Quite the opposite. Faced with the realization that this wild, functional, beautiful space was now her home… Well, Natasha would be lying if she tried to say she didn’t like the idea. When she focused on him again, Clint was leaning against the kitchen island with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. 

“And you were worried,” he scoffed.


	3. Make It Your Own

For the first time in a long time, Natasha awoke to the warmth of the early morning sun on her face. She’d taken the downstairs suite beside the kitchen—naturally, since Clint had claimed the upstairs room and already had Tony decorate—and found that the floor to ceiling picture windows from their living room carried through. In the light of day she finally took stock of her bedroom and actually found herself smiling at the blank slate of white walls and hardwood floors. It was nearly bare, something Clint had explained was done on purpose so she could do whatever she wanted with the room. The king sized bed looked like something out of a hotel with its white sheets and comforter, and aside from a pair of sleek black nightstands with plain lamps that she’d been assured could be useful elsewhere if she found something else she preferred there wasn’t any furniture in the room. She rolled over in the plush bed and retrieved the StarkPad she hadn’t bothered to turn on yet from one of those nightstands.

“Good morning, Miss Romanov,” JARVIS greeted her as she moved. “I trust you slept well. I apologize for the morning intrusion, but Mr. Stark insisted that I make myself available to you when you awoke.”

“Thanks, JARVIS.” She stacked a few of her pillows against the headboard and leaned back with the StarkPad in her lap. “I take it this fancy tablet can help me do something about my empty bedroom?”

“Of course.” For the next couple of minutes the AI gave her succinct instructions on how to place orders to be delivered to the apartment. Then, he walked her through the little program that had been pre-loaded so she could lay out furniture placements that Tower staff would follow when they brought up any pieces she ordered. By the time she told him she was set she’d already swiped her way through a dozen options for dressers and wasn’t sure how she was going to choose.

It was hard to admit after she’d been so excited when she woke, but overwhelmed didn’t even begin to cover it. If she was working undercover, Natasha knew how to adapt herself to any situation. She could pull off everything from prim and proper lady to filthy, drug-addicted prostitute. Up against a mark she knew how to walk, talk, sit, stand, and canoodle her way through whatever they could throw at her. Choices were her business, but those were choices she made to get where she needed to be. They had nothing to do with her thoughts and preferences.

She’d been staring at a selection of rugs for nearly a quarter of an hour when the bedroom door banged open and Clint took a flying leap onto her bed. Natasha yanked her feet out of the way with a split-second to spare, clutching her knees and StarkPad to her chest. Clint sprawled face-down across the foot of the mattress, arms and legs splayed out like a starfish. He wiggled a bit like a dog settling into a snowbank before he rolled to one side and grinned up at her. 

“What’s got you still in bed so late?” he asked, trying to pinch at her feet through the comforter.

“It’s barely nine-thirty.”

“I know,” he teased. “That’s like sleeping in till noon for you.” Eyes narrowed, Nat stretched one leg out until she could wiggle her toes beneath his side, digging into his ribs. He jerked away from her, ticklish as always, and promptly fell off the end of the bed. He huffed and puffed his way back up onto the corner of the bed farthest from the reach of her feet, settling with his legs criss-crossed beneath him. “Seriously, are you okay?”

Sheepish, she refused to look at him. “I was trying to get a start on this whole personal living space thing,” she admitted after a beat, fiddling with the StarkPad once more. “I’m not sure I can figure out how to do it.” She gave a little cough before she continued. Admitting weaknesses were never easy. “Not the ordering and placing part, but the choosing stuff for me because I like it.

To his credit, Clint didn’t even flinch at the revelation. “Nah,” he assured her. “It’s just something new. You’ll be able to manage just fine once you get going.” He crawled up the bed and settled himself beside her, peering over her shoulder at the page of rugs on the screen. He made a face at the options. “Although, it might help if you weren’t looking at the generic stuff with zero personality.”

“That’s what I was talking about with the choosing issue.” She thunked her head back against the headboard. “I’m so used to this stuff either being utilitarian or part of a mission. I don’t know how to do it for having an actual home.” 

“Okay. Close your eyes.”

For anyone else, she probably would have gotten suspicious and started questioning. Clint was different, though. They’d been through so much, and with the exception of recent alien staff incidents, she’d never felt like she couldn’t trust him. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, barely flinching when he tugged the StarkPad from her fingers.

“It’s the end of a wicked-long solo mission.” His voice was soft and gentle, a soothing tone she’d heard him use when talking rookie agents down from panic attacks after their first mission in the field. “You’re tired and dirty, but you know you’re going back to the best safehouse imaginable. Tell me about that safehouse.”

She was quiet for a long moment, but eventually an image started to form in the blackness behind her eyelids. “Warm. Bright.” Short words turned into descriptions, and the more she said the easier they came. “Lots of neutral colors with occasional jewel tones. Thick knitted blankets. Sleek wood pieces. Light walls with dark floors. Very few mirrors. Maybe some plants.” She opened her eyes at a pressure against her shoulder to find Clint smiling softly at her. He had the stylus to her StarkPad in one hand, notes of the things she’d said scrawled on an app in his chicken scratch handwriting. He handed it back to her, and she felt the uncertainty disappear as she read over the words.

“See?” he nudged her again before snuggling against her side. “You can do this just fine.” Just as quickly as he settled he shot up again, bouncing on the mattress with all the boundless enthusiasm of a puppy. “Okay! Why don’t we see if we can take one of the trucks and go check some shops out in person? It’s different getting to see and feel stuff than just trying to pick it out on a website.”

“You want to take me furniture shopping?” She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Weren’t you the one on the flight back last night saying that you didn’t want to go anywhere for at least two days?”

“That was yesterday.” He crawled off the bed, rolling his shoulders as he headed for the door. “And I may have the ulterior motive of getting some good pizza while you’re out fueling my actions a bit as well.” He paused in the doorway. “And donuts. Gotta have donuts. Get dressed! We need to get a move on if we want to have time to see some good stuff. Stark’s throwing some sort of dinner shenanigans for us all tonight.”

“You know this kind of domestic stuff is why people think we’re secretly married, right?” she called after him even as she was throwing back the covers to get out of bed. “And if this turns into an episode of one of your housewife reality tv things I’ll find a way to make you pay!”

“Aww, Nat, no! We agreed that you were going to stop making fun of my love of the home and garden channel!”

She closed the door behind him before he could see the smirk on her face. After fishing clean underwear out of her bag she stepped into her bathroom and really looked it over for the first time. The floors were mostly made up of small, square ceramic tiles in a neutral cream color, but here and there were dotted tiles in royal purple, deep turquoise, and black. A half height partition wall blocked the view of the toilet from the door—useful if you happened to have a roommate that could pick locks and didn’t care to knock. The large, marble topped vanity had a sink to one side and ample space for make-up and hair tools. All of the metal fixtures were gold toned. The room featured both a walk-in shower surrounded by glass walls and a massive soaker tub.

_ Oh, _ she thought as she looked around, a genuine smile spreading over her features.  _ I could get used to this. _

~*~*~*~*~*~

Stark hadn’t been lying when he told Darcy that she didn’t know what she was getting into. That was clear the moment JARVIS opened the elevator doors and let her, Jane, Tony, and Pepper out on the entry level of the Avengers’ private lab space. The labs took up four of the floors that were hidden behind the massive “A” sign on the outside of the building and had no real exterior windows as an added security measure. There was only one entrance from the main elevator, and it opened onto an atrium balcony that overlooked the network of stairs and catwalks used to navigate between the different floors. Darcy and Jane stood at the railing, gaping in awe at all the shine of what might just be science paradise. 

“Right,” Tony clapped his hands. “Let’s get this tour started! JARVIS, take us down to the pit and we’ll work our way up.” As soon as he finished speaking the floor beneath their feet began to move steadily downward. 

The pit, it turned out, was Tony’s personal lab space, and the floor hadn’t even stopped lowering to its level before Darcy realized that she’d already seen it in the background of the call on the plane. It sprawled wide and open with gleaming surfaces behind thick glass walls. As the platform settled on the bottom floor they could see through to a series of lighted cases along the far wall where at least a dozen different versions of the Iron Man suits were on display. The railing pulled back into itself to let them out on the floor and Tony strode forward with confidence. He placed his hand against one of the walls and some sort of internal circuitry blinked beneath his palm. A door in the glass slid open.

“The only people with unlimited access are myself, Pepper, Rhodey, and Bruce,” Tony told them. “Everybody else has to go through JARVIS, but most of the time I’m an open book.” Pepper snorted. “It’s true!” he insisted. He walked them through the lab, making screens appear and disappear with a wave of his hand as he chatted about the various things he was working on. There was a freight sized elevator at the back right-hand side of the lab that could provide direct transport to the underground floors. Tucked into a corner of Tony’s space was a little living area that had a small kitchenette and a wide leather couch with a red blanket folded over its back. It had the worn-in look of a place where someone might pass out after a long science-y bender. Darcy made a mental note of its location in case she ever needed to sweet talk him into a little nip-nap.

A metal spiral staircase hidden just behind the couch took them up to the next floor. Another glass enclosure was there, requiring Tony’s handprint to get them through into the next lab space. This area looked more like a traditional laboratory than an engineering paradise. There were specimen coolers, bunsen burners, and all kinds of chemistry toys. A table in the middle of the room was covered from end to end with interesting machines, and a rolling stool was parked on one side.

“This is Bruce’s playground,” Tony explained. He pointed across the way to the corner where the freight elevator was. It was entirely enclosed by some sort of reinforced metal and concrete room. “That’s the Hulk’s little bunker in case things get big and green. Hasn’t been an incident yet, and he should be able to make it inside before the Hulk comes all the way out. If things get dicey JARVIS is programmed to utilize some holograms and lasers to lure him there. Then he’ll clear the freight elevator, put all the stops on lockdown, and drop the big guy down into a reinforced sub-basement until he takes a nap.” He waved them past and back toward the atrium, pointing out the kitchenette, a couch that looked much less lived in than his own below, and a well-appointed meditation corner that seemed to get much more use. “He’s got a pretty open door policy, but sometimes he works with weird chemicals, so check with JARVIS first if you’re coming down to talk to him.”

“I imagine if I need to work with Doctor Banner it will probably involve more of my instruments than his,” Jane pointed out, though she scribbled a reminder on the corner of her current notebook page. 

“Yeah, but if Darcy here is as good as we think she’ll be motherhenning all of us by the end of the week.” Tony flashed them both a cheeky grin and jogged up a flight of stairs to the next level.

“That conversation was supposed to be more subtle,” Pepper told them with a put-upon sigh. She threw a vicious glare at Tony’s retreating back before turning to Darcy and Jane. “After our dinner last night I had an idea. If you’d be willing to see that Tony and Bruce take naps and eat something besides wheatgrass shakes in between your work for Jane I would be very appreciative. We’ve already budgeted additional pay for your services should you choose to accept.”

Darcy blinked. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Jane beaming at her. “You want me to be Tony and Bruce’s assistant, too?”

“No.” Pepper gave a soft laugh. “I’m asking you to oversee all of the Avengers labs, Miss Lewis. That would include Dr. Cho and any visiting minds like Erik Selvig as well.”

“Call me Darcy.” The response to her name was automatic. Her mind was basically just screaming incoherently in response to the rest of what Pepper had said. After a long moment she was able to drag her jaw off the floor and find some words. “You do remember that I don’t actually do much in the way of science, right?” She didn’t have to look to know that Jane was rolling her eyes.

Pepper chuckled. “I don’t either, but I’ve managed Tony for years without understanding his work. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I really do need someone I can trust to keep an eye on things here whenever I’m not in town.” She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’m pretty sure if I keep leaving Tony and Bruce alone that they’re going to go stir-crazy and build some kind of dangerous robot.” She placed a delicately manicured hand on Darcy’s shoulder. “You don’t need to give us an answer now. I’m not trying to blindside you into accepting, and no matter what you choose your apartment, salary, and position as Jane’s assistant are still perfectly secure.” She excused herself with a gentle nod and turned to follow Tony up the stairs, leaving Darcy and Jane alone.

“Did you know about this?” Darcy hissed, rounding on her boss.

“JARVIS might have mentioned it while I was in the shower the morning,” Jane admitted with a shrug. “They wanted to make sure I wouldn’t think they were poaching before they offered.”

Darcy worried her bottom lip with her teeth. “And you’re okay with it?”

“Darcy,” the astrophysicist began, actually closing her notebook. “You know I love you. You’ve been invaluable to me since New Mexico. I could not deal with people and manage any semblance of order in my life without you.”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ on the horizon.”

“But you’re bored.” Jane stared directly into her eyes as she laid it out. “Ever since you finished up your poli-sci degree you’ve been fishing for things to do in between keeping me alive and working. The last time we had margarita night you were talking about getting an intern of your own just so you could make up things to entertain yourself making them do.”

“I maintain that it could be useful to have someone run my errands,” Darcy insisted with a haughty sniff. She could see the point, though. “You’re not entirely wrong. I don’t want to leave you, but I am running out of Netflix queue.”

Jane just nodded and reached out with the hand not clutching her notebook to grasp Darcy by the shoulder. “Exactly. I know I’m exhausting when we’re going for days on end, but maybe having a few other charges could help fill the time in between my manic moments.” She punctuated her next words with a squeeze of her hand. “Just think about it, at least.”

“Hey!” Startled, Darcy and Jane tilted their heads back to look up at the railing above. Tony was leaning over it. “You ladies planning to get on with the tour any time today?” 

They both rolled their eyes, but started up the staircase all the same.

“Yeah, yeah,” Darcy huffed in his general direction. “Keep your pants on.” She stopped a few steps up to stare at him with narrowed eyes. “Seriously, always keep your pants on. My sweet, virginal eyes don’t need to see that.”

“Virginal my ass,” Tony snorted. “I know you’re too much of a wildcat for that. Come on. Get the lead out.” He snapped his fingers at them impatiently as they climbed, tossing good-natured jokes their way. “Finally. Alright, Foster,” he flourished one hand at the wall to wall blackened glass that made up the front of the lab on this floor. Two strips of silver metal stretched from floor to ceiling in its center to indicate a door. “Your lab, so you do the honors. Palm against the glass to the right of the door. It’ll take a few seconds to confirm your biometrics the first time.”

Jane did as she was bid, and a halo of red light outlined her hand for several seconds. Then the door slid open at the same time the rest of the glass turned completely transparent. They crossed through the doorway into another sprawling open space. Just inside the door to the left was a more well-appointed living area than either of the labs below. A plush blue couch, loveseat, and pair of armchairs were situated around a dark wood coffee table. All the furniture appeared to be reinforced—perhaps in anticipation of visits from a certain Norse god who didn’t know how to call when he was on planet. Behind the cosy seating was a kitchen that boasted a full size refrigerator, farm sink, stove, and oven with marble countertops throughout. Someone had clearly done their homework and learned just how often Team Astrophysics cooked and ate in the comfort of the lab.

Opposite the living space on the right side of the door was another wall of blackened glass. An entire quarter of the floor seemed to be sectioned off by that glass, but all of their attention was drawn away from it as Jane moved further into the lab. All of Jane’s homemade equipment was already in place, the layout nearly identical to what they’d had in their previous lab. Only, where the previous lab had been a bit cramped this one was spacious and open. There were other gadgets as well, all of them shiny and new, and the astrophysicist poked through them in a near trance while Tony explained what they were. Darcy wandered through the tables, empty pin boards, and machines, making a mental note of what was where. There was a large workbench tucked against one of the walls with Jane’s desktop computer, but it didn’t look like any table space had been set aside yet for Darcy.

“And then there’s the best part,” Tony told them with a grin, stirring Darcy from her thoughts. He pointed up at the ceiling which seemed to be made of some sort of black tile. “Hit ‘em with the showstopper, J.” In an instant the glass darkened again and all the lights went out. Then, the night sky winked into existence above them. It was as clear to see as it had been in the desert. “It can always replicate the sky above the tower in perfect detail using some instruments we’ve got on the roof. Doesn’t matter if it’s day or night. You can also program it to display snapshots you’ve taken in the field, feeds from satellites we have access to, or a lot of other options I don’t feel like listing out. That ceiling is why all the glass in here can be adjusted from transparent to solid black.”

“My dude. That is seriously cool.” Darcy grinned at the way her boss was staring up at the sky like Christmas had come early. She could already see the gears turning in Jane’s head for all the ways she was going to use the new bit of pretty. 

“You ain’t seen nothing yet, toots,” Tony assured her. “Ready to check out your office?” Before Darcy could formulate a response he called up to JARVIS and the black glass walls sectioning off part of the floor turned transparent. Through the glass she could see a massive desk, a huge square sectional that faced out toward the atrium, and at least a dozen crates. “I got the feeling you’d want to do the decorating yourself, so I had them keep most of the stuff in boxes so you could decide what you want where. It’ll need to be keyed to you just like the lab was to Foster.”

Giddy with excitement, Darcy practically skipped to the office door and placed her hand against the glass. It warmed beneath her palm, and gave a beep so faint she could barely hear it when the door whooshed open. Without preamble she went to the nearest crate and peered inside. It contained spool after spool of dainty string lights. She laughed with delight.

“Are you sure this’ll be enough to make it good and cosy in here?” she teased, raising an eyebrow in Tony’s direction.

“If it isn’t I’ll just make more.”

“You made these?”

“Yep,” he confirmed. “Energy efficient, programmable bulbs. Once they’re set up JARVIS can help you set color, flash patterns… pretty much anything you want. You’ll be able to control them either by talking to him or using your StarkPad.”

Darcy blinked at him. “I just told you I wanted fairy lights when our plane was landing. When did you have time to do this?” She narrowed her eyes. “Have you been to sleep since last night?” 

“Don’t you mom voice at me until you say yes to the job, Lewis.” He wagged his finger at her. “J and I worked out the design before I came to dinner last night. He got them made while we all slept. All I had to do this morning was tell Happy to bring them up here.”

“Sir,” JARVIS spoke up suddenly. “I hate to interrupt, but you and Miss Potts are scheduled for a lunch meeting.”

Tony heaved a put-upon sigh. “Guess we’ll have to hit Helen’s medical lab on the top floor later.” He gave a dramatic, sorrow-filled sigh. “I’m particularly proud of that one, too. If you get any boo-boos working with the stars that’s the place you’ll want to go. Cho is the best in the business.” It took a little needling from Pepper, but eventually he allowed himself to be poked and prodded out of the lab. Darcy watched them go with barely contained amusement before she turned to check in with Jane. Her boss, it turned out, was already deeply absorbed in checking over her homemade machinery to make sure nothing had been damaged in transport. Darcy managed to get a small grunt of acknowledgement that she was okay and didn’t need help out of her before retreating back to her office and shutting the door.

“Hey, JARVIS,” she asked when the glass had whooshed shut, “is this glass super easy to hear through?”

“No, the material used to create the walls is not actually glass and is completely soundproof.” 

“Good.” She let out a little shriek of happiness, pairing it with a booty-shaking victory dance. With an incredulous laugh, she flopped down on the sofa, noted the matching plush ottomans with no small amount of happiness and pulled the StarkPad from her messenger bag. She opened a note-taking program with a couple of taps and tugged the stylus free. Poised to write, she addressed the AI once more. “Alright, J-man. Give me the rundown on all the goodies Stark put in these crates.”


	4. Let's Do It Family Style

Darcy bounced excitedly on her toes as she and Jane rode the elevator down from their apartments to the communal floor at ten to seven that evening. After he’d returned to the labs from his meeting, Tony had spent a couple of hours helping Darcy to set up her office and then working with Jane to fine-tune some equipment before he wandered back to his own lab to tinker. While they worked he told them that most of the Avengers—minus a certain thunder god whose name he was surprisingly tactful enough not to mention—were finally in residence and he planned to celebrate with a little family dinner to welcome everyone to the Tower. He’d insisted that they should come, and Darcy had insisted that Jane leave the lab and put on lady clothes before meeting the superheroes. 

Lady clothes to Jane that day, apparently, meant her cleanest jeans, a white tank, and a flannel that didn’t have any holes in it. Darcy decided to pick her battles and not make a fuss. After all, the denizens of the Tower would have to get used to Jane’s manic science wardrobe sometime, so she should honestly just be happy there weren’t any coffee stains. Darcy herself, on the other hand, had been internally agonizing over outfit choices all day. She didn’t want to be overdressed, but with the prospect of managing all of the Avengers labs on the table she still wanted to make a good impression. In the end she traded her usual leggings and t-shirt combo for a gauzy gray a-line skirt, a v-neck tee that didn’t have any swear words on the front, a short black cardigan, and a pair of electric green flats with zombie faces on the toes that she never wore in the lab for fear of spillage. All in all, she thought she’d managed to be dressed up just enough to appear professional without sacrificing casual feel or personality. There might have been a lot of mirror selfies before she and Jane made it to the elevator.

The communal floor was all shiny tiles and cool lighting. Truthfully, it was three floors—specifically the three directly above the labs where they’d spent most of the day. The top of the Avengers Logo was just visible over the side of the landing strip for Tony’s Iron Man suit, and Darcy knew from one of her many conversations with JARVIS that the landing for the quinjet was just beneath it. The space consisted of an open floor plan on the bottom floor with a network of sleek staircases and catwalks winding up to a few interesting smaller spaces on the second ‘level’ and a hallway lined by metal and glass railing at the top. One massive, curving wall stretching across the space was made entirely of glass panels that provided an incredible view of the New York skyline. 

There were only a handful of people milling about when Darcy and Jane stumbled out of the elevator and managed to pick their jaws up off the floor. The open floorplan sported a bar against a wall beneath one of the upper spaces and a gleaming professional kitchen at one end. There was a farmhouse style dining table big enough to seat at least twenty people. A sitting area populated by plush sectionals was currently occupied by a man and woman in deep conversation. There were a number of gaming tables set off in a corner where Tony and two men were gathered with drinks and pool cues in hand. It looked like a buffet had been set up on the counters in the kitchen that was just missing the trays of food. They spotted Pepper as she came down one of the flights of stairs. She gave them a cheery wave and they met her in front of the bar.

“Hi!” she chirped brightly when they got to her. Instead of the fancy office clothes she’d been wearing on their tour that morning she was outfitted in a gauzy shirt and calf length leggings. She took a sip from a glass of white wine and gave them both a beaming smile. “I hope the lab is up to par. Would you like wine?”

“The lab is perfect,” Jane assured her. “And yes, please, to the wine. I’m not very good with social stuff and I have no idea who most of these people are.”

“We’ll fix that.” Pepper made her way behind the bar and started pouring another glass. “Darcy? Wine?” When they all had their glasses she joined them on their side of the bar. After insisting that they all have a seat on the stools there she leaned in close and explained to both of them who everyone was. They could both recognize Steve Rogers, of course. The man he and Tony were chatting with was Colonel James Rhodes. To both of their shock the mouse-y looking guy with the khakis and glasses was Doctor Bruce Banner. His conversational companion was Doctor Helen Cho. “And Clint and Natasha should be here any time now. They took one of the trucks out and got hung up in traffic.”

Darcy matched the names to everything she’d read about the battle with the Chitauri. “They’re Hawkeye and the Black Widow, right?”

“Right,” Pepper confirmed. “They actually just got in last night, too. I think they were shopping for furniture today.” She smirked into her next sip of wine. “Steve’s a little put out with them.”

“Oooh! Janey we’ve only been here a day and we’re already getting in on the gossip,” Darcy breathed with enthusiasm. She bounced a little bit on her stool. “Tell us the good stuff, Pep!”

“You have no idea how happy I am to have someone to actually share the juicy gossip with,” the older woman admitted with a tinkling laugh. She shifted on the stool and crossed one lean leg over the other. “So, Steve has this thing about training. We’re pretty sure it’s a combination of his being in the army and the probably insane amount of practices he had to do with all the showgirls. Apparently, he wanted to spend today hashing out a team training schedule.”

She tried—she really did—but Darcy couldn’t help it. “Did he forget that they’re all adults with their own agendas?” she asked rather pointedly, stifling the giggles that were threatening to bubble up. “And that one of them is Tony?”

“I believe that is exactly what he forgot.” Pepper’s eyes were sparkling with mirth. “He thought they’d meet him in the training gym well before lunchtime.”

“Wait, didn’t you say they got in later than we did?”

“I did. Steve was actually the one to meet them at the landing pad. At nearly four in the morning.” Pepper opened her mouth as if to continue, but closed it just as quickly. She tilted her and Darcy followed her gaze to the woman on her other side. Beside them, Jane wasn’t paying the least bit of attention. She was staring at Doctors Banner and Cho with laser focus, swirling her nearly empty wine glass in one hand, and gnawing on one corner of her bottom lip. 

Darcy rolled her eyes, set her wineglass on the bar, and mouthed ‘watch this’ at Pepper. “Janey-bug? Jane? Jane?” She alternated a few different voices and accents as she continued running through variations of Jane’s name over a dozen times. When none of them managed a reaction she rolled her eyes again, braced herself against the bar with one hand, and leaned over to bump her shoulder against Jane’s. “Hey! Astrophysics lady!”

“Ow! Darcy! What?” Jane went from absent and still to flustered and—curiously—a little flushed in an instant. “What is it?”

“You want to be off talking the science, don’t you, Janey-bug?” Darcy gave her an indulgent smile.

“Yes,” Jane admitted, “but you know how I am with introductions.”

“I have, in fact, been to a number of conferences with you and am aware that you suck at telling people who you are without grossly offending someone.” She hopped down from her barstool and shook out her shoulders. “That’s what you have me for.” With one hand clamped on the scientist’s wrist she dragged Jane across the room to the sofa where Doctor Banner and Doctor Cho were still deep in conversation. “Heya, science people!”

Both doctors looked up with startled befuddlement at her cheery arrival. Up close she could see the stubble and fine lines that marked Doctor Banner’s face. There was grey creeping into the dark curls of his hair. Helen Cho, on the other hand, was the very picture of self-care and a great skin routine. Darcy approved. She stuck out the hand that wasn’t holding Jane in a firm grip and waited until Doctor Banner reached out to take it before she began her introductions.

“I’m Darcy, assistant to this genius astrophysicist I’m dragging.” With a yank she pulled Jane forward and turned to shake Doctor Cho’s hand while she continued the introductions. “This is Doctor Jane Foster. She would very much like to have smart people discussions with you guys instead of sitting bored while Pepper and I gossip like the still-smart-but-definitely-not-scientists smokin’ hot babes that we are.” Her part done, she gave Jane another small nudge forward then clapped her hands together. “Great! I’m sure everyone will be fast friends. Play nice!”

She high-tailed it back to the bar before any of the scientists could recover, grinning wildly at Pepper as she went. When she returned to the perch of her stool the other woman handed her back her wineglass complete with a helpful refill.

“That was inspired.” The laughter in Pepper’s voice was just a shade past dignified without quite becoming a snort. 

Darcy waved her off. “Oh, she would have done it eventually. Best to just cut through all the babble.” She took a sip of the wine. “Now, tell me more fun stories about the superheroes.”

They were still chatting and laughing some time later when the elevator doors opened and the last of the Tower residents arrived. Clint Barton sauntered into the room with one arm draped over the Black Widow’s shoulder and a sway in his step like they were some kind of perfect 1950s greaser power-couple. He was dressed in faded blue jeans, work boots, and a black t-shirt under a purple and black flannel with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, but it wasn’t him that Darcy couldn’t peel her eyes from. Natasha Romanov cut a striking figure even in the most casual of clothing. Dark skinny jeans clung to every inch of her long legs, cuffed up on her calves above bright yellow Converse. Above that she had on a simple long tank top under a denim jacket. The two of them were laughing about something when Tony looked up and spotted them.

“There they are!” he shouted, extricating himself from his conversation with Rhodey and Steve. “Beer for both of you?” He moved past them both without stopping, making a beeline for the bar while they took his place with the two men. “You decide to take the job yet, Short-and-Stacked?” he asked while he pulled two frosty bottles from one of the refrigerators behind the bar and popped their caps.

“Oh, I probably will,” Darcy admitted, not bothering to turn and look at him. “But you knew that when you offered, so let’s just leave any paperwork until nobody’s drinking.”

He laughed while walking backwards into her line of sight, one beer in each hand. “Look at you keeping me responsible already!” He turned away from them to rejoin the team, calling over his shoulder at JARVIS as he went. “J! Remind me to throw Lewis back-pay for today through whenever we get her to sign a contract!”

All of a sudden, as if drawn by Tony speaking Darcy’s name, Natasha looked up and directly into her eyes. Her gaze was there and gone, attention flicking back to whatever Steve had just said, but Darcy felt her heart skip a beat all the same. She’d always had a thing for girls that could probably kick her ass. There might have been a women’s professional wrestling fan phase somewhere in her past.

"Oh man," Darcy sighed wistfully. Pepper followed her gaze to where Natasha was swaying gently back and forth while she and Steve talked. "That is the type of woman where you're not sure whether you want to  _ be _ her or  _ be with _ her." She took a sip of her wine, following it up with another deep sigh. “Too bad she’s into the Robin Hood type.”

With all the subtlety of Tony when he wanted something an idea shoved its way into Pepper's brain. It wasn't exactly a bad idea, but it was an idea that was going to require a delicate hand to pull off.

"Can you keep a secret?" she asked, leaning close enough to Darcy to make her conspiratorial intentions obvious. Pepper shook her head and frowned, deciding she hadn’t worded that the way she meant. "Let me rephrase that: can you keep a secret  _ from Tony _ ?"

Darcy quirked an eyebrow, tearing her eyes away from the woman across the room to face the CEO with one arm propped on the bar. “Feel free to tell me if we’re not on affectionate swear word terms yet, but bitch, for ten minutes of entertainment I could keep the cure for cancer from Tony Stark.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clint kept giving her these little knowing smiles. The bastard. After so many years together in the field they’d developed an incredible sense for one another’s thoughts and feelings. The moment she’d laid eyes on the beautiful brunette chatting with Pepper she was completely smitten. No matter how fleeting she’d kept her glances in the other woman’s direction Clint still somehow knew. It was like he could smell her interest. If she ever found out Loki’s little mind game with Clint had given her partner the power to read her thoughts she was going to find her way to Asgard with murder in her heart.

She could hardly focus on the conversation going on around her. The boys were arguing about something, but it faded to the background of her awareness. The room was warmed by the setting sun as everyone mingled. She kept a polite smile on her face while her eyes flitted around the room, taking in the few new faces. She knew Steve and Bruce and Tony, of course. Pepper and Rhodey were acquaintances from her time undercover working for Stark, and Helen Cho was a familiar face from a few files back at S.H.I.E.L.D. The only two she didn’t know for sure were the gorgeous brunette and the woman chatting with Cho and Banner, but it wasn’t hard for her to make an educated guess. If the woman chatting up the scientists was Thor’s paramour that meant the woman who’d caught her eye had to be the assistant, Darcy Lewis—and the hacker that had fooled S.H.I.E.L.D.’s ID scans. 

Natasha was getting more interested by the minute.

“Hey, that means dinner time!” Tony called suddenly, shaking Nat from her thoughts. A handful of catering personnel were moving around the kitchen area, arranging trays of food over portable burners on the counters. Something smelled delicious. 

She followed the boys as they made their way straight to the food, already more focused on the prospect of filling their stomachs than they were on any previous conversation. Out of the corner of her eye she watched the rest of their little dinner party hang back. Pepper and Miss Lewis hadn’t even paused in their own conversation, though both of them had trained their eyes on the trio of geniuses still chatting on the couches. By the time Natasha had loaded a plate with brisket, roasted vegetables, and some sort of cheesy potato dish that smelled mouth-watering the two women had set aside their wineglasses and begun to round up the scientists, hen-pecking them toward the buffet. Nat hid her smile behind another sip from her beer and sauntered to the table, settling herself into a chair at the large farmhouse table. She found herself tucked between Steve and Clint, and quickly let them carry her off into a conversation about military operations in the Middle East.

“Hey there, Agent Biceps!”

Startled, Nat looked up from her plate to find herself staring into the wide blue eyes of Darcy Lewis. The other woman was grinning at Clint while she pulled out the chair directly across from Natasha. She set two plates on the table and nudged Doctor Foster into a seat beside her. The astrophysicist was still absorbed in a discussion with Helen Cho, and she barely nodded at them as she took her seat and accepted the plate Lewis shoved in front of her.

“Lewis,” Clint acknowledged with a grin. He gestured at her with a fork. “You and me are cool, right? I’m not going to have to worry about any of your crazy pranks now that we live in the same building?”

“I’m still a little salty about the iPod,” Lewis admitted, “but I seem to recall it was the suit that took it and not your fine, elven ass.” 

Clint barked out a laugh. “If you say so, hobbit.” He teased before returning to his food. 

Natasha watched the interaction between the two of them and mentally sorted through what she knew of Thor’s arrival in New Mexico. She’d been embedded in an operation in Japan at the time, so all of her knowledge came from whatever Clint had told her after the fact. She decided to ask him about it later, and instead turned her attention to observing Lewis in the present— just in time for her to turn those beautiful eyes on Natasha.

“Hi,” Lewis began with a beatific smile, one hand reaching across the broad wouldn’t table. Nat took it as if she were in a trance, fixed on the warmth of that smile being focused entirely on her. “I’m Darcy.”


	5. Settling In and Opening Up

It was easier than she’d thought, this business of having a home.

Natasha wasn’t sure how two weeks had managed to pass so quickly, but they seemed to have flown by in the blink of an eye. Her bedroom was no longer the sterile, hotel-like environment it had been when she arrived. She’d hung three ivy plants from the ceiling in front of the massive windows, and they were the first thing she tended every morning when she woke. They didn’t need water every day, but she checked their soil anyway to make sure they hadn’t dried out too much in the night and picked over their leaves to prune back anything that might impede healthy growth. Online videos and observations from JARVIS helped her maintain their care.

When she finished with her plants she and Clint would grab a quick breakfast and head down to the training facilities in the sub-basement to work with Steve for a few hours. The training wasn’t really for anything more than keeping their skills up to snuff and learning how to be a team without the pressure of an apocalypse looming over their heads. It was an interesting transition to try and train not for handling situations as an individual or an agent with one or two people in the distance but as part of a team where every member was a force to be reckoned with.

The weirdest part about this life was that after training she didn’t have much of anything she was required to do. SHIELD had promised that they would send missions from time to time, but now that she and Clint were on-call with the Avengers all the time they were free to pick and choose which ones she actually wanted to take. They’d only sent two thus far, and neither had been something she thought another agent couldn’t handle just as well so she’d sent them back. For the most part she spent her afternoons enjoying her new living space or just spending time with Clint without the next op hanging over their heads. It almost felt surreal, like she was living someone else’s life, but she didn’t hate it.

Of course, she also spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about the manager of the Avengers labs.

Darcy Lewis was a surprise she hadn’t been prepared for at Stark’s little welcome dinner. The younger woman was beautiful, and to make matters worse she was just friendly enough to put herself right in Natasha’s path. She’d sauntered right over at the dinner, introduced herself, and then taken Natasha on the most entertaining conversational roller coaster she’d experienced in recent memory. They’d talked about everything from designer shoes to pop culture to (and this was the part that surprised her) whether an acid bath or cremation was the better way to get rid of a body.

She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t completely enamored already. Clint hadn’t stopped teasing her about it. If he wasn’t dramatically bemoaning that his work wife was cheating on him with a civilian (“You’re cheating in your heart, Nat, even if you are too chicken to actually ask her out.”) he was needling her about taking a trip down to the labs to see if the buxom brunette wanted the company of an awkward Russian spy of her very own. The human vexation that was Clint Barton lived to torment her even when she was in the best of moods.

“Heya, bestest friend in the whole wide world.” 

She looked up from the book she was reading on their unfairly comfortable couch in the conversation pit and glared at her roommate. “What do you want?” she demanded, knowing for a fact that he wouldn’t refer to her in such a manner without a motive.

“Am I not allowed to compliment my favorite roommate?”

Instead of dignifying that with an answer she marked her place in her book and stared at him. ‘The Amazing Hawkeye’ was wearing a clean pair of jeans that didn’t have holes in the knees. He looked freshly showered and shaven, and there was a hint of some sort of cologne on the hair. She crossed her arms as she regarded him, already sure she knew what he was about to ask.

“Maria’s in town,” he admitted after a beat, his shoulders drooping. “And I know you two don’t mind spending time around each other, but I was kind of hoping…” He trailed off, looking everywhere except her face.

“You were hoping I’d disappear and let you have the apartment for the night so you and your girlfriend can hump like bunnies,” she finished for him. He nodded guiltily, and she rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why you think you have to butter me up for something like that. I’d rather find another place to sleep than end up walking into some bondage experimentation whenever I go to the kitchen for a snack.”

He looked immediately guilty. “I was thinking that catwalk could make for some interesting suspension.”

“Please don’t ever tell me the details.”

She made a show of dragging herself off the couch and gathering a few things for the evening, sighing loudly the entire time. He followed her from room to room, praising her with increasingly lavish—and ridiculous—compliments interspersed with lovesick commentary about Maria Hill. Truthfully, she didn’t mind. Maria was one of the only people aside from Clint she would honestly call a close friend, and she knew the two of them didn’t get a lot of time to themselves. Tony and Banner were both out in Malibu. She could crash in either of their labs without a problem. She had, however, learned long ago to milk things like this with Clint for everything she could get. 

“You owe me,” she told him as she made her way out the door.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Darcy was pretty sure she was teetering on the edge of the first science bender since they’d moved into Avengers Tower. Late evening was quickly winding down to true night, and Jane wasn’t showing any sign of stopping on her current research. The theory was that in order to perfect accurate navigation for her portal project she’d need to be able to accurately map the stars in both the departure and arrival locations. With that in mind, Tony’s gift of the fantastic star mapping tech built right into the lab’s ceiling was a godsend. However, it also meant that Jane could essentially work non-stop. Darcy had made a deal with to get her to bring up the main lab lights and turn off the ceiling for a couple of hours’ break from the eyestrain by promising to bake a batch of the astrophysicist’s favorite snickerdoodle cookies.

All in all, it was a good thing that their lab had been so well-equipped for workers that basically lived in the space. 

She had just finished putting a tray of cookies into the oven of their little kitchen when a flash of red outside the front of the lab caught her eye. JARVIS had set the lights in the atrium to some kind of “active nighttime” mode, so they weren’t nearly as bright as the daytime fluorescents, but when she walked around their sitting area to peer out through the faux glass that made up the lab’s wall she could still clearly see the figure of Natasha Romanov when she crossed the catwalk on the floor above and started to make her way down the stairs. Darcy frowned a little bit in curiosity. If she was heading downstairs the other woman hadn’t come to see Helen Cho—who had actually been in their darkened lab listening to Jane ramble about constellations and astro-phenomena until barely an hour ago—but both Tony and Bruce were away in Malibu for the next few days. Then her gaze zeroed in on the items Natasha was carrying: a pillow, a worn blanket, and a paperback book. She smiled as she realized that she must be giving Clint the run of the apartment for the night so he could spend time with the secret girlfriend Pepper had told her about. The spy must have been planning to crash in one of the empty labs. Before she could let herself change her mind, Darcy opened the main lab door and walked out to the railing.

“Hey!” she called. Natasha was halfway down the steps to the floor below, but she stopped and craned her neck up at being addressed. “Got a big night planned?”

Natasha snorted and waved the book with one hand. “Only if you call Dostoevsky in the original Russian a big night.”

“Eeew,” Darcy made a face. “Sounds like summer reading from high school all over again. Wanna hang out up here for a bit? Jane’s starting a bender, so I’m lab-bound for the foreseeable future. I was going to have a movie marathon.”

“What movies?” The way she asked suggested that she might decline, but the redhead was already making her way back up the steps. 

Darcy shrugged. “Oh, I don’t usually plan them all out. I figured I’d start with Young Frankenstein and go with the flow from there.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen that one,” Natasha admitted as she approached.

“Blasphemy.” Turning back to the lab, Darcy pressed her palm against the glass and led the other woman inside once the door had whooshed open. “It’s a classic, and I insist that you join me to watch it.” She turned back to her with a beaming smile. “But we can’t do that until after the cookies are done. Mel Brooks is not to be interrupted.” She reached out a hand to take Natasha’s pillow and blanket, setting them aside on the loveseat for the moment.

“Is that why it smells like sugar in here?”

Jane picked that moment to wander over from where she’d been organizing something in the lab, contributing absently as she made her way to the coffee machine that JARVIS was keeping constantly supplied with a fresh pot. “Darcy’s bribing me with snickerdoodles to have the lights on for a bit.” She refilled her mug and took a long sip before she continued. “What brings you down here, Miss Romanov?”

“Natasha, please,” she insisted, wrinkling her nose ever so slightly at being called ‘Miss.’ “Couldn’t sleep.”

Darcy quirked her eyebrow at the fib, but decided not to call her on it. “I’ve conscripted her for necessary Mel Brooks consumption,” she insisted, moving around Jane to reach for the jar of popcorn kernels she kept on an upper shelf. “She’s never seen Young Frankenstein, Jane.”

“Oh, that’s a travesty.” Jane smiled at the both of them, then narrowed her eyes in a suspicious glare. “You guys are going to watch it in your office, right? Light pollution isn’t going to help me map stars, and I seem to recall someone claiming that their bed pretending to be a sofa is ‘way comfier.’”

“It is and we are.” Darcy hummed as she got the popcorn started in a covered pot on the stove and bustled about the little kitchen. “Besides, there isn’t actually a TV out here.” She began to shoo Jane back to her work. “You and I both know you’re only over here because you’re impatient for cookies. Go do your science and I’ll bring you a plate when they come out of the oven. And drink some water after that cup! Hydrate!

She turned back to find Natasha had moved into the kitchen and taken it upon herself to start washing the mixing bowl from the snickerdoodles. Warmth settled into the pit of her stomach at the sight. It was sweet and domestic, and it was just adding on to the attraction she already felt for the other woman. Plus, there was just something really cool about seeing the notorious Black Widow doing something so incredibly  _ normal _ as washing dishes.

“If you keep that up I’m going to conscript you every time I decide I want to get busy in the kitchen,” Darcy quipped. She reached for the handle of the popcorn pot and gave it a little shake. From the corner of her eye she could see that Natasha was smirking. 

“This isn’t exactly what I’d call getting busy.”

Darcy flushed, but she could just let such a perfect opportunity pass her by. “I mean, I’m open to suggestions for getting busier,” she teased. Before Natasha could respond the timer on the oven beeped. Darcy donned her oven mitts—a pig’s head on her left hand and a sparkly rainbow number on her right—and busied herself with retrieving the trays of cookies. While she transferred them from the metal sheets to a cooling rack the popcorn began to pop, rattling the lid of the pot. Natasha reached over from the sink to grasp the handle of the pot and kept it moving while the kernels inside exploded. 

Darcy couldn’t help but notice that they made a pretty good team through it all. 

“Do you have butter?” Natasha asked when the popping noises began to slow. “Or do you not butter your popcorn?”

“Only communists don’t butter their popcorn, my friend,” Darcy insisted. “Even vegans find a working substitute.” She dropped the cookie sheets in the sink and pulled the rainbow oven mitt off with her teeth in order to retrieve the butter from the fridge. 

They bickered good-naturedly for a few moments about the amount of butter, but managed to reach an agreement. Natasha made it her job to melt and mix in the butter while Darcy fished a couple of plates and a tupperware container out of the cabinet and started dishing out cookies. She loaded up a small plate for Jane, a larger plate for herself and Natasha, and put the remaining cookies in the container to save for later. After hiding the container behind a set of mixing bowls in one of the upper cabinets— an insurance policy against Jane eating nothing but cookies for the next eighteen hours— she ferried the smaller plate over to Jane, once again reminding the other woman to drink something besides caffeine at some point in the near future.

“Alright!” she chirped, clapping her hands together as she returned to the little kitchenette. “We are now movie ready. Mind grabbing the popcorn?” She carried the large plate of cookies in one hand and snagged a six-pack of soda from the fridge with the other while she lead Natasha through the open glass door into her office. “Close the door behind us, please, JARVIS.”

The glass walls of the office were already blacked out, and once the door closed it was lit only by the hundred of tiny lights Tony had made for her. She’d set a number of different color and twinkle patterns in the two weeks she’d been working at the Tower. The option she’d chosen that emulated the flickering reds, yellows, and oranges of tiny candle lights that gave the room a warm, welcoming glow. The projector installed in her ceiling was already on. A screensaver of campfire photos cycled on the wall that faced out into the atrium whenever the not-glass was set to a less solid state.

“Jane wasn’t kidding,” Natasha commented from her side. “That does look more like a bed than a couch.”

“It’s the ottomans,” Darcy explained with a laugh. “They have locking feet so they can be pushed up against the rest of the couch to make one huge surface.” 

She’d made the whole couch up to its comfiest state before she made her deal with Jane over the cookies, and she was quite proud of the inviting coziness she’d managed to create. She’d spread out a huge comforter to cover the spots where the seats met the ottomans, thrown a variety of snuggly blankets about for ease of snuggling, and there were easily a dozen pillows aside from the cushions that had come with the couch. Darcy had purchased several of them with great enthusiasm in her first few days, spreading a riot of color and sparkles over the couch’s surface, and then the others had appeared on their own. After the third pillow arrived during the hours she was out of the lab and she started to panic about their multiplication, JARVIS had admitted that they were Tony’s way of saying thanks whenever she’d done something he thought worthy of praise.

“It looks cozy,” Natasha admitted, shaking her out of her thoughts about her decorating work. She watched the redhead crawl onto the couch with much more grace than she’d ever be able to manage. She didn’t even spill a single kernel of popcorn. “So, what’s so special about this version of Frankenstein?”

Darcy snorted out a laugh, handed over the plate of cookies, and practically rolled into a spot on the couch. “Oh, you are in for a treat.”


	6. Jump in Feet First

The artificial sunrise programmed into the ceiling of Darcy’s office and Doctor Foster’s lab wasn’t really anything like a real sunrise, but it woke Natasha up all the same. The light was strongest in the east corner of the office, simulating the sun’s rise by slowly increasing the intensity of the light and shifting its colors from grey to pink to the brightest yellow-white they could manage. Natasha blinked her eyes open just as the colors started to change from pink to that yellow-white and stared up at the ceiling above. She could see the lines of string lights criss-crossing across the ceiling above the couch where she’d fallen asleep, though it appeared that JARVIS had switched off the bulbs at some point. The last thing she could remember was Darcy asking JARVIS to queue up another Mel Brooks flick when they wrapped up Young Frankenstein, though she couldn’t actually remember the first film’s ending. She moved to do a full body stretch, but found that there was a weight on one of her legs.

A little stiff, Nat shifted her elbows beneath her body and lifted her torso and head up just enough to look around. Darcy, it turned out, was still beside her. Very beside her. The younger woman was sprawled on her stomach in a star shape across most of the couch, her face turned toward Nat one one of the many pillows. One of her legs was the weight holding Nat down, and as the redhead carefully extricated herself from beneath it Darcy mumbled into the pillow and pulled her limbs closer in toward her body.

Nat settled cross-legged a little ways away and watched the other woman sleep for a long moment. Finding Darcy in the labs was the last thing she’d expected when she decided to crash on Bruce’s couch the night before, and to be perfectly honest she was starting to suspect that the impending science bender was another reason Clint had asked her to scram for the night. It would be just like him to engineer an ‘accidental’ encounter to try and set them up. She’d been telling herself for days that she just needed to shrug off her crush on the brunette, but she wasn’t going to be able to go on with that lie kicking around in her brain. The interest was obviously mutual, and there was no denying that she’d had more fun in the last twelve hours than she ever could have imagined. Even now, watching Darcy drool against the pillow with snarls in her hair and creases from the pillow on her face, there was a tingling warmth spreading through her at the thought of getting to wake up beside her again.

With a shake of her head, Nat pushed the thoughts to the back of her mind for the time being. She needed to find something to do that wasn’t creepily watching Darcy sleep. With the silence and grace of a cat she climbed off the massive couch and slipped out into the lab in her socks. Doctor Foster was still engrossed in her work at one of the benches, one pen in her hand and a few others sticking haphazardly out of her hair. There was a coffee cup at her elbow, but Natasha had a suspicion that it was either already empty or had cooled to the point where it wouldn’t be drinkable. Still moving quietly, she made her way to the kitchen and retrieved the coffee pot that had just finished brewing. JARVIS, it seemed, had perfected the rhythm of maintaining coffee in this lab. She took the pot with her and topped up Jane’s cup. The astrophysicist gave her a vague smile and muttered an absent “good morning” before frantically scribbling again in a worn notebook spread on the worktable. 

By the time Natasha had poured a mug of coffee for herself and settled against the counter to take a sip Darcy was shuffling out of her office. Her hair was in a disheveled bun on the top of her head. There were panda bear slippers on her feet and her glasses were a little bit crooked on her nose. She was the most adorable thing Natasha had ever seen, and she suddenly understood that giddy feeling Clint had always described when he talked about the way Maria shuffled about in his boxers and a sports bra in the mornings.

“G’morning,” Darcy mumbled as she came across the room, making grabby hands for the coffee before she’d even made it halfway. “Please. Hot bean water. Need it.” 

Natasha made a show of pouring half the remaining pot into a massive mug shaped like a unicorn head she’d found in one of the cabinets. Darcy took it from her hands like she was accepting the holy grail and immediately took a scalding mouthful, her eyes fluttering closed. They didn’t speak while they worked their way through the mugs, but Natasha’s mind was working overtime. She knew a million different ways to secure a mark’s interest, but starting a healthy, semi-normal sort of relationship was going to be something entirely new. By the time her cup was empty she had a plan. It wasn’t going to get her any further than that afternoon, but a voice in the back of her mind that sounded annoyingly like Clint insisted that she put it into play all the same.

“Darcy,” she began, taking the unicorn mug out of the other woman’s hand. “What are you planning to do for lunch?”

~*~*~*~*~*~

There was nothing even remotely date-worthy in Darcy’s entire closet. So, she put on her comfiest robe and did the only logical thing she could think to do. She had JARVIS assure her that while Pepper was also in Malibu she wasn’t with Tony at that particular moment and then had him open a secure line.

“Let’s see,” Pepper began as soon as her face filled the holoscreen in Darcy’s bedroom. She looked impeccable as always, ocean front scenery rolling outside the picture windows behind her desk. “It’s nine a.m. here, so that makes it right at noon there. Either Jane has somehow managed to blow up part of the labs without Tony—which would shock the hell out of me—or this is a personal call.”

“Definitely personal,” Darcy confirmed. She took a deep breath, and then launched into the entire story. Pepper had her pause just after she admitted to having fallen asleep with Natasha on the couch so she could have her assistant hold all her calls, but after that she listened with rapt attention, her chin propped in one perfectly manicured hand. By the time Darcy finished up explaining how she’d talked Jane into breaking her stargazing bender early to have lunch with Helen Cho—a task that hadn’t been nearly as difficult as she’d expected—to give her time to get ready for her date, Pepper was beaming.

“That’s so wonderful! I’m happy for you, Darcy. And for Natasha.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “It’s a first date, Pep, not a marriage proposal.” The other woman didn’t look convinced. With a heavy sigh, she blazed on ahead. “Trouble is, I can’t actually remember the last time I had a first date. I’m pretty sure it was before tall, blonde, and godly fell on New Mexico at the very least. I need help figuring out what to wear.”

“Right.” Pepper nodded sagely. “Do you know what you’ll be doing on this date or is Nat being all secretive and spy-like?”

“Bit of both. We’re getting sushi. She didn’t say where.”

“That makes sense. Nat’s a little particular about sushi, but she loves it so I should have expected it to be her go-to.” Narrowing her eyes, Pepper favored Darcy with an appraising stare. “You definitely want to be comfortable. Don’t go with a ball gown or anything, but maybe not jeans or combat boots either.”

Darcy considered that and her closet for a moment. “Is a sundress too much?”

“Hmmm. Let me have a look at what you’re thinking.”

“Well, sundress might not be the right word.” Darcy shuffled some hangers around before coming up with one of only three dresses she had. It was really more of a t-shirt with a full gathered skirt attached than a sundress, but it was one of her favorites. The bodice was eggplant purple, and the skirt was black patterned artfully with bright green paint splatters. “Too much?”

“Not at all!” Pepper insisted. “You should wear those zombie flats you had on at that first big dinner.”

With a grin, Darcy bent to retrieve the shoes in question from the floor of her closet. “This is actually the only outfit I usually wear them with.”

“Oh, goodness, why? They’re great shoes. They’ve got personality.”

“Eh,” Darcy shrugged. “Most of the places Jane’s had lab space over the last few years haven’t been great for cute shoes. I didn’t want to risk them by wearing them around the lab.”

Pepper nodded along on the screen before glancing down at her desk. There were several lights blinking on a console there in a way that suggested there were a lot of calls getting put on hold. “We’re going to have to break you of that and get you into more cute shoes.” She sighed as another blinking light appeared. “I’m sorry, Darcy, but I’m going to have to go. Have a fantastic time! We’ll have lunch when I get back and you can tell me all about it!”

“You’re the best, Pep!” Darcy grinned at the other woman. “Have I mentioned how grateful I am to have roped you into friendship? Because the amount of grateful is pretty insane.”

“It goes both ways.” 

With that Pepper hung up their call and left Darcy to her preparations. She checked the time on her bedside clock and rushed back into the bathroom at top speed. She was supposed to meet Natasha at her apartment at one o’clock. Her hair was still wrapped up in a towel. At least she was going to be too busy rushing to bother with over-thinking.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Natasha counted herself lucky that she had access to all of Tony’s rich boy resources. Without JARVIS and his rolodex at her disposal she didn’t think she would have been able to get all the right grades of seafood for her lunch plans on such short notice. As it was she’d still spent a few hours in the early morning running out to different shops and markets to get all the supplies on her list. She shouldered in through the front door of her apartment at a quarter after eleven without bothering to warn Clint she was coming in first. Thankfully, he and Maria were both dressed. Well, what passed for dressed for the two of them on a relaxing morning, anyway.

“Good morning,” Maria greeted her when the door clicked shut. She and Clint were eating French toast side by side at the island wearing matching pairs of boxer shorts and white a-shirts. She tilted her head at the bags in Nat’s hands. “It looks like you got an early start.”

“I had to,” Natasha admitted as she set the bags on the counter. “I have a date at one.”

Clint froze with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Actual date lunch date or meeting to go over a mission lunch date?” A glob of syrup fell from the fork and splashed back onto his plate. “Did you finally ask Lewis out!?”

Instead of answering, Natasha just smiled and started to unload the bags into the cabinets and fridge. Clint seemed to take that as a yes, and he launched into a grand tale of star-crossed love to fill Maria in on the romantic happenings of Avengers Tower. Natasha offered a comment here and there to correct his flights of fancy, but mostly she just traded exasperated facial expressions with Maria while they let him ramble. Hearing the awkward flirting of the last two weeks through the lens of Clint’s gaze was like watching a dopey romantic comedy through the eyes of a supporting character, and she couldn’t help but laugh at the very thought that this was what her life of secrets, spies, and shady business had become.

“So,” Maria chimed in when Clint paused in his tirade long enough to shove half a slice of French toast in his mouth. “I take it from the grocery run that you’re planning to have the first date here?”

“I thought it would be best,” Nat confirmed. “If this doesn’t work out I don’t want her to be at risk for having been seen with me in public.” And she wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t embarrass the both of them on a first real date out with the masses, but they didn’t need to know that.

“Makes sense.” Maria nodded in understanding. “We can make ourselves scarce.”

Beside her Clint, who had begun to light up as though Christmas had come early, completely wilted. “Awww!” he whined. “We could just be background noise! Maybe watch a movie. Totally normal and not at all interrupting.”

“Nonsense.” Proving herself to be the flawless, Clint-wrangling angel of Natasha’s dreams, Maria pressed a syrupy kiss to his cheek. “We can pretend to be tourists and annoy the locals at the Central Park Zoo. I’ve got a flight out of J.F.K. at six anyway.”

Clint pouted, but he let himself be poked and prodded into Maria’s plan all the same. They cleaned up their breakfast dishes and even helped Natasha straighten up the communal space of the apartment before they disappeared upstairs to get ready for their day out. Natasha made a mental note to find a way to make this up to Maria later and rushed through the process of getting ready. She opted for a comfortable pair of jeans and the softest v-neck tee in her dresser, hoping the casual clothes would help calm the butterflies coming to life in her stomach. She didn’t bother with shoes since they wouldn’t be going anywhere, but she did spritz on a little scent from a bottle that Pepper had given her for Christmas. By the time she made her way back to the kitchen to start prepping for lunch Maria was leading Clint out the door.

At exactly one o’clock Darcy rapped on the apartment door, and it took all the training Nat had to tamp down the riot of nerves in her gut. She opened the door to an absolute vision and actually felt her heart skip a beat. Darcy was decked out in a dress that looked as soft as Nat’s shirt felt against her skin and the same wild shoes she’d had on when they first met. Her hair fell in a riot of chocolate curls over her shoulders, loose and untamed. She hadn’t bothered with much make-up, but there was a shimmer of some sort of gloss over her lips that Natasha was having a hard time looking away from.

“Am I early?” she asked, nodding at Natasha’s lack of footwear. “Let me tell you, I don’t think you want to walk the streets of New York barefoot.”

“No, you’re right on time,” Natasha assured her, stepping back to wave her into the apartment. She led Darcy into the kitchen and pulled out one of the stools for her. A fancy set of sushi plates was laid out on the island—the only dishes Nat had taken care to keep over the years—along with all of her prepped supplies. “I hope you don’t mind. I’ve got a lot of enemies, and I didn’t think it would be a good idea to go out in public until you’re sure you really want to make a go at this.”

“Psh,” Darcy snorted, waving a dismissive hand as she kicked off her flats and settled onto the stool. “I was all-in the moment you asked, but I will also never turn down an opportunity to avoid the whole people thing.” She looked over the set-up in the kitchen and narrowed her eyes. “Wait, are you telling me you’re going to be the sushi chef for this date?”

Natasha quirked one well-groomed eyebrow, trying to hide the way her stomach clenched at the question. Was planning to cook a bad idea? “Is that a problem?”

“No, it just makes me wonder if we should skip the dating and go right to marriage.” Darcy grinned and give a little huff of laughter to let her know she was teasing. “How did you have the time to learn to make sushi in between all the super-spy stuff?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. loves sending me to Japan for some reason,” Natasha admitted. She poured a glass of plum wine for each of them, and then set to work on the sushi rolls. “I dated the sushi chef of a restaurant where I was embedded in deep cover looking into the yakuza.” 

While she worked she told Darcy all about the time she’d lived in Osaka, leaving out all the classified details. The brunette laughed in all the right places, sipping her plum wine and asking the occasional insightful question. By the time she finished rolling, slicing, and plating Natasha’s nerves had completely slipped her mind. She topped off their glasses and set out the extra for their meal, then rounded the island to take the stool next to Darcy’s. She’d barely settled on her seat when Darcy placed a hand on her arm. Natasha turned to look at her and found herself frozen at the realization that she was much closer than she had realized.

“Hey,” Darcy whispered, leaning in. “I meant it, you know. What I said about being all-in.” She didn’t wait for Natasha to reply, instead closing the distance between them to press a soft kiss to Nat’s lips. In the few seconds the chaste kiss lasted the world could have fallen down and rebuilt around them for all that Nat was aware. It was over as quickly as it had begun, and Darcy pulled back to give her another breathtaking smile. “Just wanted to make sure that was clear.”

“Crystal,” Nat breathed, hardly sure she was saying anything at all. They picked up their chopsticks and started to eat, casting shy glances at one another for the first few bites. Darcy was the first to break the tension.

“I don’t think I can ever go out for sushi again,” she teased after she’d eaten a piece of every roll Nat had made. “You’re going to have to be my personal sushi chef.”

Natasha laughed. “I think I can live with that. No telling Tony, though. I’m not doing this for him.”

“That will not be a problem,” Darcy insisted. “I wasn’t even here a day before I started keeping shit from Tony.”

“It’s a necessary survival tactic.” Natasha took a sip from her wine. “Did you know he thinks Clint and I have been secretly married for years?”

“Together, yes, but I didn’t know he thought there was actual legal paperwork in there somewhere.” Darcy gestured broadly with her chopsticks. “Confession: Pepper filled me in on the truth of that one at that dinner the night we met.”

“Oh really?”

“Yep. I was bemoaning my lack of shot since you were obviously taken and she said something about Clint having a secret girlfriend. Is that why you were in the labs last night, by the way?”

Nat nodded. “That is exactly why. Clint’s been with Maria for ages.”

“Wait,” Darcy blinked rapidly. “Maria Hill? Deputy Director to Captain Eyepatch?”

“The very same,” Nat confirmed, trying not to choke at the thought of anyone calling Nick Fury ‘Captain Eyepatch.’ “She was nice enough to drag Clint out of the Tower so he wouldn’t interrupt.”

“She should be sainted.” They ate in silence for a beat. “Did you know Tony thinks I should date Steve?”

Natasha’s heart clenched. “Rogers?”

“Yep.” Darcy took her time chewing before she continued. “He’s been throwing hints ever since I got here. Pepper warned me that he can be a bit of a pig about ladies who love ladies, so I haven’t bothered to tell him I don’t bat for Steve’s team yet.” 

“He tries.” Trying not to let her relief show too obviously, Nat took the chance to direct the subject toward Tony. “He was a selfish playboy for a long time, and old habits are hard to break.”

“Oh, I know. Tony’s got a lot of problems, but I’d never accuse him of being actually homophobic. Besides,” Darcy gave her a conspiratorial smile. “I’m starting to really love the idea of breaking the news to him in an outlandish and hilarious manner.” Natasha laughed, and from there they launched into a long discussion about all the ways they could break Tony Stark’s brain just by being more interested in one another than Captain America.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Darcy felt like she was walking on air by the time she left Natasha and Clint’s apartment. She’d almost stayed long enough to start considering dinner options, but they’d both agreed that they should call it a day as afternoon started creeping on toward evening. Granted, they’d only made that agreement after Natasha pointed out that Clint would be dropping Maria at the airport and returning to the Tower soon. Between Natasha’s bestie status and her own history of pranking the archer neither of them wanted to deal with him barging in on the end of a date. They kissed goodbye at the door—a longer, much less chaste kiss than the one at the counter—and agreed that a second date was definitely going to happen. Darcy had demanded to be in charge of it, so she was gearing up to put her thinking cap on. 

Of course, she was also several hours late for getting back to Jane in the lab, but JARVIS had assured her that “Doctor Foster is not in any position to require assistance at the moment” when she’d asked. She’d thought it was so funny when he put it that way.

It made a whole lot more sense when she walked through the door of the lab and found Jane playing tonsil hockey with Helen Cho.


	7. Friendship and Magic

It was funny how even though Darcy was younger than the both of them she still managed to get Jane and Helen to look exactly like guilty teenagers when she leveled a pointed stare across the lab’s sturdy little coffee table. She took as long as she could to pour out a cup of coffee for each of them, making a show of placing the cups directly in front of the other two women with her snootiest mom look. With her own mug balanced in one hand, she crossed one leg over the other and looked from one scientist to the other while she took a long, drawn-out sip. They fidgeted like kids who were late for curfew.

“So,” Darcy began, milking the moment for all it was worth. “Helen. What are your intentions with my Janey-bug?”

The deer in the headlights look was priceless. The poor woman was mostly self-sufficient, so she hadn’t really faced the full force of Darcy’s ridiculousness yet. “I… uh…” 

“Do not dignify her with an answer,” Jane interrupted with a prim little sniff. “I am a grown woman and I will not play this game, Darcy.” As dignified as she was pretending to be, her cheeks were still flushed. Something that might well be a hickey was starting to show up on the pale skin of her neck.

“You never let me have any fun, Jane,” Darcy pouted. Turning the pout into a smile, she turned back to Helen. “I am screwing with you because Jane always makes it so easy to get under her skin.” She thought about that for a second and took another sip of her coffee. “Also it’s just kinda what I do. You’ll get used to it if you’re going to be around this lab more often.” With that she pushed herself up off the couch and strode toward her office. “No naked time in the labs, though! Y’all have apartments for all that!”

It wasn’t ten minutes before she heard Jane and Helen say a quiet goodby and the astrophysicist appeared in the office door. She looked flustered, and the slightly embarrassed pink tinge to her cheeks was now turning into a ruddier hue.

“How was your date?” she asked, rubbing her upper arms with her hands. “Did you and Natasha have fun?”

“It was perfect,” Darcy told her with a bright grin. She watched the red in Jane’s cheeks rise higher, the sparkle of something gathering at the corners of her eyes, and decided to save the full happiness dump about her day for another time. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“I’m not a cheater,” Jane whispered. “I’m not. I just…” 

“Hey.” Darcy crossed the room wrapping her hands over Jane’s on the other woman’s biceps. “You can stop with the thinking you’re a terrible person thing right this instant. Because you totally aren’t. You and Thor, you guys never had time to define your relationship. It was a whirlwind of science and romance and his asshole brother’s first attempt to wreak havoc on Earth.” That elicited a little hiccup of a laugh. “He can’t expect you to wait forever, especially when you never had the exclusivity talk.”

Jane nodded, but there was still doubt in her face. “I think…” she heaved a tired sigh. “I think I still love him, though.”

“Well, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from a lifetime of Star Trek fanfiction it’s that there’s an answer for that, too.”

“Oh yeah?” Jane asked, skeptical. She and Darcy handled their mutual love of science fiction in very different ways. “What’s that?”

“Polyamory.” Darcy grinned. “Be honest with everybody and just date them both.” Jane laughed softly while Darcy kept talking, swiping the tears from her face with her sleeve. “Who knows. That may end up working out well for everyone involved.”

“Darcy?”

“Yes, Jane?”

“Do we have to work tonight?”

“Oh my god, are you actually asking me whether or not I’m down to play hookie? Have we met?” Without another thought she snatched her bag up with one hand and wrapped her other arm around Jane’s waist. “Come on. We’ll go to my place, order some kind of delicious take-out, and watch a wholesome film to soothe our souls.”

“Magic Mike 2?”

“Duh. That’s the good one. The first is just depression with strippers.” She gave her friend a squeeze as they left the lab and headed for the elevator. “Besides, we both know you’re all about them beefy boys. It’ll make you feel better to watch ones you don’t have to be emotional about.”

“I’m sorry I’m raining on your first date happy parade.”

“Don’t even worry about it. I’ll talk your ear off over breakfast.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

“Natasha!” Clint, never one for subtlety outside of field work, flung the door of their apartment open with gusto. “Daddy’s home!”

“If you ever refer to yourself as ‘daddy’ when talking to me again I will geld you with a power drill like they do with horses,” Nat assured him from where she was tidying away the last of her sushi dishware in one of the kitchen’s glass-fronted cabinets. “There’s a video online. It’s like you’re spinning a baked potato out of the skin.” When she turned to look at him she found Clint staring at her in horror. One of his hands was still clasped around the doorknob, but the other was held protectively over his crotch.

“You can’t say things like that, Nat,” he whispered dramatically. With a shake of his head he stepped further into the apartment and closed the door behind him. He fell against the door, still looking at her like she might just be the antichrist. He glanced down his body and then back up to her. “What if you’ve scared all my bits so bad they never work again? What would Maria say?”

Natasha turned to him with the most serious no-bullshit expression she could manage. “She’d say you should respect the wishes of your best friend or else face the consequences of your stupidity,” she assured him. “I highly doubt Maria lets you call yourself ‘daddy’ with her either.”

For a second, Clint looked like he might try to argue but seemed to think better of it. “Whatever,” he grumbled. “You’re no fun.” He posted up on one of the barstools, propping his chin in his hands with his elbows on the counter and blinked at her with wide eyes.

Undeterred, Nat wet a rag and wiped down the counters. Then she wiped out the sink. She rinsed out the rag under the faucet and wrung out all the water. For every task she finished she managed to find another to do. Clint watched her every move, clearing his throat every few minutes. She studiously ignored him. He lasted almost half an hour.

“Come on!” he finally shouted, groaning like she’d physically hurt him. “How’d it go? Did you kiss? Are you gonna see her again? Did you make plans for another date? Does she do that thing you hate with using the pickled ginger as a topping instead of a palette cleanser?” He rocked back on the stool, grabbed the edge of the counter, and pretended to shake it violently. “GIVE ME THE DEETS.”

Chuckling quietly to herself, Natasha pulled two bottles of beer from the fridge, took a seat on the stool beside him, and did exactly as he asked.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Thor returned on a sunny Thursday afternoon with absolutely zero warning three weeks later. 

A lot had changed in those weeks. Darcy and Natasha had been on half a dozen dates and somehow managed to keep all of them off Tony’s radar. Jane and Helen hadn’t been caught canoodling in the labs again since that first time, but they were spending a suspicious number of evenings in one another’s company. A number that may or may not have perfectly matched the number of times Darcy and Natasha got together for dinner and movies. After returning from Malibu, Pepper and Darcy had taken to getting together for weekly gossip lunches off-site where they could chat uninterrupted. At Tony’s insistence, all of the Avengers level residents had been getting together for Sunday brunch every week.

The God of Thunder landed on the roof with the shimmering rainbow of the Bifrost and a clap of thunder. He strode through the empty communal floor with purpose and asked politely for the disembodied voice of Stark’s home to direct him to his beloved Lady Jane. JARVIS managed to give the labs a warning that he was coming, but the only person who heard it was Darcy. Darcy, who was busy laying out a row of paperwork on a desk in Tony’s lab while he, Bruce, Jane, and Helen were all in Jane’s lab and oblivious to the world while they worked on portal tech. By the time she scrambled up the two flights of stairs her thunder-bro was already striding through the open doorway into the lab.

“My Lady Jane!” he boomed, red cape fluttering out behind him. He dropped Mjolnir gently by the door, leaning his bulk to the side just enough for Darcy to see the shocked expression on Jane’s face. “I have returned to you, my love!”

For a moment, the labs were so quiet you could have heard a feather hit the floor. Tony reached slowly for Bruce’s wrist, his eyes lighting up in anticipation of the coming drama. The blood drained from Helen’s face, leaving her white as a ghost. Then, an unholy shriek of rage tore its way out of Jane’s throat and all hell broke loose.

“WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN!?” Tony and Bruce stepped back from the pint-sized astrophysicist just in time to be out of her way when she launched herself at Thor. Jane punctuated each of her next words with a thump of her fists against Thor’s chest. “IT. HAS. BEEN. OVER. A. YEAR!

To his credit, Thor just stood there and patiently let Jane beat on him while she yelled. Darcy slipped around the two of them, kicking her shoes in the direction of the couch while she made a beeline for the other scientists. Bruce was starting to look pale in a decidedly green-ish way, the racket clearly having an impact on his calm. She inserted herself between him and Tony, letting Stark turn his dramatic clutching on her so Banner could escape to the freight elevator. Helen remained frozen in place, her eyes fixed on the arguing couple while she worried her bottom lip between her teeth. Finally, Jane’s shrieks became more targeted yelling, coherency pushing the blind rage further to the back.

“You were right here!” she hissed, stomping her foot. “You were in New York, surrounded by all of Stark’s crazy technology! You couldn’t have called?”

“My sweet Jane,” Thor soothed, perfectly calm in spite of the storm focused entirely on him. “I am mighty, but even I cannot call loud enough for you to hear my voice on the other side of Midgard.”

There was a good chance that Darcy popped a blood vessel trying not to laugh out loud. Color returned to Helen’s face, her skin flushing a bright red as she pressed her lips tight together. Beside her Tony made a strangled sound before seeming to compose himself. “She means a call on a telephone, Point Break,” he explained, his voice strangely high-pitched. “It’s a mortal technology thing.”

Thor frowned. “I am sorry, my Jane. I did not know such things existed.” He looked so much like a kicked puppy that Darcy had to cover her mouth to hide her smile.

“It’s—” Jane took a harsh, deep breath, deflating in the face of his genuine apology. “Did you expect me to wait for you?” She rolled her shoulders back, looking up into his face. “Did it occur to you that I might meet someone else?”

And then, Thor said something that stole the breath of everyone in the room.

“Of course it did,” he insisted. “It does not do for a warrior’s lover to want for comfort while they are away.” For the first time he looked away from Jane and fixed his gaze on Helen. “I admit, I was quite concerned that you had taken no others to your bed before Heimdall told me you found companionship with the Lady Helen.”

Tony’s grip on Darcy’s arm grew so tight she was sure he would leave a bruise. A short, high-pitched whine escaped his lips. Darcy couldn’t see Jane’s face, but she was fairly certain she knew what it looked like: mouth agape, eyes wide. Not too different from the way Helen’s face looked at that very moment. Thor continued on as though he was unaware of the bombshell he’d just dropped. 

“She is a fine companion, Jane.” He turned his gaze back to her with a beaming smile. “Perhaps once you and I have had time to reacquaint ourselves with one another she might consent to allowing me to court her as well.”

“Is this really happening?” Tony asked, incredulous. He was practically vibrating. “Big guy, are you telling me that you’re not the least bit upset or surprised to find that your lady-love has been doing the do with the only other lady scientist we’ve got around here? Because it is news to me.”

“A lot of things are news to you, Tony,” Darcy snapped before Thor could answer. She tried to come up with a simple question that might kick start the conversation she was suspected was going to happen in the very near future. “Thor, my dude, are you saying that monogamy isn’t something you’re concerned with?”

As adorably oblivious as ever, Thor tilted his head to one side. “Of course not. On Asgard monogamy is only expected within the confines of a royal marriage, and that’s only to insure the bloodline of at least one heir. Once an heir has been produced such stipulations usually fall by the wayside.”

She could actually feel Tony winding up with more questions, but with one look at Helen’s now very interested face Darcy knew the best thing she could do for everyone in the room would be to get him out. Determined, she used the grip he had on her arm to start dragging him toward the door. He barely resisted, still trying to wrap his head around all the new and juicy information.

“That’s absolutely fascinating, big guy,” Darcy told Thor as she pulled Tony past him and scooped up her shoes. “We’ll have to talk about that sometime later, but right now I think you three have a lot to talk about.”

“Wait.” Tony dug in his heels two steps outside the door. “I have questions.”

“No, you don’t.” With a hard shove Darcy pushed him further from the lab. “JARVIS, seal that door and black out the walls,” she commanded. “Nobody in until those three have sorted whatever it is that they’re about to sort.” She planted both hands on her hips, shoes dangling from her fingers, and fixed Tony with her sternest glare. “Go to your lab and leave them alone or so help me I will tell Pepper that you’re the one who zapped that pair of her Louboutins with the portal machine with no idea what the destination would be.”

“You’re a cruel woman, Lewis,” he grumbled, but he trudged down to the pit all the same.

Darcy ran into Natasha on the upper level of the atrium as she hurried toward the elevator. Literally. It was neither graceful nor painless as they collided and Darcy windmilled her arms to keep from falling over. Luckily, though Natasha wasn’t large she was strong and well-balanced enough to snatch for the railing with one hand and Darcy’s waist with the other. She managed to keep them both upright and even managed to keep Darcy’s bag from hitting the floor by trapping it against the outside of Darcy’s thigh with one knee. This, of course, resulted in the two of them needing to untangle themselves from one another before any sense could be made of the situation.

“Thor’s back, he already knew Jane and Helen have been hooking up, and apparently that’s not a problem because monogamous partnerships are super rare on Asgard,” Darcy blurted the moment they were sorted. Natasha just stared at her with wide eyes. “Wanna hide in my apartment for an impromptu date where we absolutely do not think about the things the three of them are totally doing with, to, and on lab equipment right now?”


	8. Put a Label On It

The most important aspect of any covert operation, Darcy had decided, was snacks. She was a master at concealed snackage. She’d come up in the era of cargo pants, after all. Being able to pack the maximum amount food as inconspicuously as possible was like a product of her generation or something. It was the first date she and Natasha were going to have outside of the Tower, and she was not about to let a little “no outside food or drinks” policy ruin her careful planning.

Something about Natasha’s insistence that she couldn’t do things out in public struck her as more of an excuse than a safety issue. She got the whole world-saving-thing putting targets on backs. Pepper had told her more than a few stories about how things could go so spectacularly wrong, after all, but something in the way Nat said it… she was pretty sure there was a little bit of nerves influencing the decision. Natasha was beyond cool when she was working. She could do whatever needed to be done, kick ass, and still look like a million bucks doing it. Regular life, though, made her awkward. Darcy had seen that the first night they met, and she’d only become more convinced of it the more time they spent together.

So, this date was carefully designed to begin making progress in a decidedly normal relationship kind of direction without spooking Darcy’s favorite Russian. JARVIS had done the majority of the research. He’d found a trendy small theater in Greenwich where people watched arthouse films in little two person pods decked out like childhood blanket forts. Tickets could be purchased online and then placed in a wait list under multiple names at the box office. Darcy had bought two using a PayPal account she routed through multiple fake e-mail addresses and tied to a pay-as-you-go online bank account with pretty shady record keeping. She directed the box office to hold one ticket under the name Skuld (her favorite character in Ah! My Goddess) for herself and one under another name for Natasha. Then, she’d crafted a very artsy ransom-style note using the prettiest, most glitter-filled letters she could find in the Tower to leave the time and place for her (hopefully long-term) companion. She hoped the spy stuff would help Nat be a little more comfortable with the prospect of a public date.

She’d selected her second smallest purse. Big bags were always the first place people expected to find contraband. She didn’t condone sneaking in concessions as a rule, but she was making an exception under the circumstances. There was no way this date didn’t include her baking something sweet and awesome. In this case, she’d made a batch of lemon bars. They were packaged in three small tupperware containers hidden in different places in case she got caught with one and had to throw it away. She was also carrying four bottles of soda, a party-sized bag of Doritos, and a package of Twizzlers. None of which she was going to be pulling out until her date arrived.

“Why Artemis?”

Darcy jumped at the realization that Natasha was, in fact, already in their little movie pod when she opened the curtain to take her seat. “Has anyone ever told you that you should wear a bell around your neck?”

“More people than I can count.” Nat gave her a wolfish grin. She had a massive bucket of popcorn balanced on her knees. She tilted it in Darcy’s direction as she took her seat. “Extra butter. I’ll suffer the greasy fingers because I like you.”

“If you keep getting things right like this I’m not going to stop dating you.”

Nat’s answering smile was all flirt. “How tragic that would be. So, why Artemis?”

“Because she was a virgin goddess.” She didn’t have to look to know that Nat was giving her a sardonic look. “The word ‘virgin’ didn’t always have all this fucked up purity connotation to it,” she explained. “At one point it was just a term applied to unmarried women. Or, you know, lesbians.” She finally turned and gave Natasha a wide grin. “Artemis was the goddess of virgins.”

With a gentle huff of laughter, Nat leaned over and pressed a kiss to her lips. “You’re ridiculous,” she whispered.

“You like it,” Darcy teased. Outside their pod the house lights dimmed and they both settled in for the film.

The movie itself was largely forgettable, but the goings on in their little fort were decidedly not. Darcy fished out her snacks throughout the film, raising a quiet giggle from Natasha with each increasingly large snack product she produced. They cuddled close in the plush double seat, occasionally ignoring the movie all-together in favor of trading sweet kisses and whispering in one another’s ear. By the time the movie was over, Darcy was positive that the first public date was a rousing success. They made their way out to the lobby hand in hand.

Though Darcy had taken a cab to the theater Natasha’s transportation was parked half a block down. Darcy relished in using travel on the back of the sleek motorcycle as an excuse to press herself as close to Nat as possible. She shrieked with laughter as they wove in and out of traffic back to the Tower and made Nat promise to take her out on it again once they were riding the elevator up from the garage. Without being asked Natasha walked with Darcy to the door of her apartment, their hands still entwined. 

“You know,” Darcy started, turning to lean against her own front door. “I don’t have an irritating Robin Hood wannabe for a roommate.” She tugged on their joined hands, pulling Nat close enough that she could drape her other arm around the back of the redhead’s neck.

“That’s true,” Nat breathed, licking her lips as she leaned in closer. “That’s rather convenient.”

“Uh huh.” Darcy tilted her face up just enough that her next words caused their lips to brush. “You could come in and we could do things without interruption.” In a heartbeat Natasha was pressed flush against her, their tongues tangled in a passionate kiss. Darcy groaned and tangled her fingers in the perfect crimson waves of Natasha’s hair, idly wondering if JARVIS could open the door for them so they wouldn’t have to stop touching to do it themselves.

And then the call to assemble echoed through the Tower.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It wasn’t five minutes after Nat left before Pepper knocked on Darcy’s door, a bottle of wine in each hand. Darcy took one look at her friend standing there in the doorway and burst into tears, stepping back to let her through the door. She wasn’t fully aware of what was going on as Pepper maneuvered about the kitchen, but it wasn’t long before she found herself wrapped up in the other woman’s arms while she rubbed soothing circles on her back.

“Shhh.” Pepper shushed her as her sobs started to lessen, leaning back to wipe the tears from her face. “The first mission is always the hardest,” she assured her. “Steve will make sure they all come back in one piece.” 

With a sniffle Darcy nodded and stepped back to finish scrubbing the tears off her cheeks on her own. “Thank you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snot all over you as soon as you came in.”

“Oh, please.” Pepper waved her off with one hand and headed back into her kitchen to rummage for a corkscrew. She found it with very little trouble, wielding the unicorn topped contraption with the ease of long years of experience. “Do you have any wine cups that aren’t made of glass? It feels way less bad in the morning if the cup you got angry enough to fling at the wall while watching news coverage doesn’t shatter.”

“I barely have any glass stuff as it is.” Darcy slipped around the other woman and stood on her tiptoes to pull a pair of plastic stemless glasses she’d found on one of her thrifting adventures down from an upper cabinet. One of them was from Halloween. It was orange with lines like it was pumpkin and the words ‘Let’s Get Smashed’ emblazoned on one side in sparkly green letters. She was pretty sure the other had been a souvenir from a pride event. It read ‘RIOT’ in bold black letters and was coated in rainbow confetti. She held both glasses for Pepper to fill with a dark red that smelled divine. There was a knock on the door just as the glasses were filled, but it opened before either of them could move to answer it.

“Hey, we brought wine and all the chocolate in my place,” Jane called as she dragged Helen in by the hand. They were both a mess, hair tousled and clothes rumpled. They lined up three more bottles of wine and a bag of chocolate snack cakes on the counter.

“So, how do we do this?” Helen asked. They all turned to Pepper.

“Turn on the news, get drunk, and hope for the best.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

The mission was a success, but it still hadn’t gone particularly well. They’d managed to keep Bruce out of the fray, at least, but it had come with the cost of a heavy beating for the rest of them. Tony’s suit was virtually trashed. Sparks had been popping from every limb by the time he got it off in the jet’s portable casing. Steve had quite literally thrown himself from the top story of a building to escape a bomb that might have actually done some serious damage. Clint’s bow, which was made of a type of carbon fiber that could withstand a whole lot of punch, had been snapped in half, forcing him to switch to the one sidearm he was packing. Nat had crossed an open section of street to take her own guns to him and narrowly avoided getting hit by an actual truck by having Thor toss her one-handed into a post-office box to take the collision with the vehicle himself.

Everyone was bleeding and exhausted, but the Chitauri-worshipping cult they’d gone to clear out of a small town were all in federal custody. The weapons they’d somehow gotten from the salvage of the Battle of New York had been confiscated, and though they’d had to turn the majority over to the government agents there were quite a few of them stashed on the quinjet. The hope was that Tony, Bruce, and Jane would be able to figure out how to narrow down the energy signatures of the weapons so they could track down any others that might have been ‘liberated’ from the aftermath of Loki’s invasion. 

Still, it was a pack of bleeding, bruised, and exhausted heroes that gathered on the jet for the return to New York. Natasha leaned back against her seat, holding an ice pack to her temple. Steve sat to her right, busily mending a tear in his uniform. Across the way Clint was sprawled on the floor and snoring. Thor and Banner were talking quietly in one corner, and Tony was keeping himself busy at the plane’s controls. She should probably be thinking about the fight they’d just finished or the implications of Chitauri weapons having made it out into the wrong hands, but instead she was thinking about blue eyes, soft lips, and exactly what the mission had managed to interrupt.

“She’s good for you.”

It might have been due to the minor head wound she was nursing, but it took a moment for Steve’s words to sink in. When they did, Nat turned to him with a mixture of alarm and astonishment written all over her face. Was she imagining things or had their star-spangled leader just owned up to knowing about the relationship she’d been doing her level best to keep secret? Before she could fumble through a response Steve rolled his eyes at her and leaned conspiratorially close.

“Nat, you’re a fantastic spy. The very best. Secrets are safe with you, but you’ve never been happy long enough to be any good at hiding it.” His lips twisted into a teasing grin. “Also, I live in the apartment under Darcy’s and have super hearing.”

“Sorry about that,” she said without any sincerity at all. She started to grin at him, then winced when the movement tugged at one of the scratches on her face. She glanced around the quinjet, relieved to see that Tony was still all the way up in the pilot’s seat and couldn’t hear them. “How long have you known?”

Steve gave her a cheeky, mischievous grin. “You know, everybody always gets so wrapped up in the fact that I went into the ice in the forties and had my years with the Strategic Scientific Reserve. They tend to forget that I worked with showgirls and travelled with the USO.” He groaned a bit as he stretched his legs out in front of them both. “Half the girls were all about the soldiers we got to perform for, but the other half were completely wrapped up in one another.” He tilted his head back to rest it against the bulkhead behind them. “People didn’t question that stuff in showbiz if you were discrete, and there’s a lot they overlooked with the ladies.”

“How scandalous,” Nat teased, shifting in her seat so she could adopt a similar pose with her head against the bulkhead. The two of the them were quiet for several long moments, their eyes closed and breathing even. “Do you think I’m being selfish?”

“What do you mean?”

Natasha sighed. “I mean, do you think I’m putting her in unnecessary danger?” She sat forward in a rush of movement, bracing her elbows against her knees. “Am I being selfish to date her at all? When I’ve got so many enemies?”

A heavy, broad hand settled on her back. “You’re not selfish. You’re human.” Steve started to rub slow circles between her shoulder blades, his voice taking on a tired edge that spoke of long hours ruminating on this very topic. “It would be selfish if she had no idea that she might be in danger, but that’s not the case here.” He chuckled. “That girl tased a god. She knows what she’s getting into. If you stop seeing her and take away her choice just so you don’t feel guilty? That would be selfish.”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, the warm weight of his hand an anchor to the here and now. She pictures Darcy in her mind’s eye, dark curls floating around her like a halo as she looked up at Nat from the couch, a flirty smile on her face. Steve was right. The woman that could look at her like that, knowing who she was and what she’d done, wasn’t afraid of something as silly as the Black Widow’s old enemies. When she next exhaled, she blew all her insecurities out and let them fade away. She had a girl to get home to.


	9. Epilogue: They're Lesbians, Heracles

_ Six Weeks Later _

The communal floor was barely recognizable. Every bit of furniture that wasn’t built into the walls and floor had been removed and replaced with tables, booths, and couches that might be found in a 1950s diner or nightclub. A massive jukebox was set up against one wall, its musical selections filtering out through the hidden speakers all over the room. The bar was covered in removable materials that made it look like an aluminum malt shop counter, made all the more authentic by the caterer behind the counter in his white hat and red bow tie. The other caterers flitted about the space on roller skates in carhop uniforms made in Iron Man’s colors as they took drink orders and delivered a selection of custom recipe milkshakes—both alcoholic and not—to all the personalities in the room.

For one night only Avengers Tower was open to Make-a-Wish children, a handful of charitably minded celebrities, and select members of the international press. Now that they’d established the manner they were going to be working in as a team it was time to make the big announcements to the world. The whole affair was Tony’s idea, of course, and he hadn’t wasted any time in making it a themed event to die for. The children and their caretakers seemed awestruck and thrilled, socializing with enthusiasm and bouncing from place to place. The press were mingling with eyes constantly flitting to the various entrances and exits. It was too good of an opportunity to gather gossip on Earth’s mightiest heroes.

The man behind it all stood on one of the upper balconies in a gold and black suit that would have made any television dance off host proud, sunglasses perched on his nose as usual. He surveyed the room with a smirk on his face, one hand on the bannister while the other brought a chocolate and cherry shake to his lips. It wasn’t the wildest party he’d thrown by any stretch, but the smiles in the room were definitely worth it.

“Admiring your handiwork?”

Tony turned at Steve’s words and gave the good captain a flashy grin. “Always!” he looked the other man up and down and barked out a short laugh at his choice of jeans, t-shirt, and custom letterman’s jacket. “Looks like someone took you shopping,” he teased. “Did you let Darcy drag you around?”

“I did, actually,” Steve admitted, leaning forward on the railing. “She, Natasha, and I made a day of it.”

“Ah, so you’re finally taking my genius advice and making a go for it with Darcy.” Tony nodded sagely. “If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times, Cap. That one is a pistol and definitely worth your time.”

Just outside of Tony’s line of sight Steve rolled his eyes. “Not saying she ain’t a wonderful dame, Stark, but I don’t think she’s for me.” Out of the corner of his eye he spotted the elevator opening. He grinned. Tony Stark was about to have a shift in his world view.

“Now what about our amazing lab manager could you possibly not—is that Barton?” Tony cut himself off suddenly, leaning down over the rail with narrowed eyes. Below them, Clint sauntered onto the dance floor in black jeans and a leather jacket with a beautiful woman in a Pink Ladies jacket on his arm. A beautiful  _ brunette  _ woman. “Did Nat dye her hair?”

“Did I what now?” With perfect timing Natasha appeared behind them, making Tony jump. She wrapped a well-manicured hand—complete with pointed, blood red nails—around Steve’s shoulder and peered into the crowd. “You do know that Maria is something like four inches taller than me, right?”

Gaping, Tony looked back and forth from her to Barton and his dance partner. Steve bit the inside of his cheek to keep his smirk in check while Tony sputtered. “You’re okay with this!?”

Natasha shrugged one delicate shoulder and quirked a single eyebrow. She didn’t say anything, instead favoring Tony with a placid stare. His mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, and Steve took the opportunity to study his friend’s attire. She’d chosen a curve-hugging halter dress with a sweetheart neckline. It clung to her from chest to knees, accented with red detailing at the neck and belted over the waist by a wide leopard print belt that perfectly matched her peep-toe heels. If Steve remembered correctly that print perfectly matched another dress he was sure to see in the next few minutes.

“Did he cheat on you?” Tony finally demanded, looking ready to stomp down to the party and start throwing punches. It would have been sweet if it weren’t so incredibly funny. “How long has this been going on?”

Good timing, it seemed, was a contagious malady. Pepper and Darcy, both impeccably dressed, were making their way up the steps behind Tony just as he began to sputter with righteous, protective anger. Pepper’s long hair was twisted up in an elegant twist that complemented her green satin dress, her feet encased in black patent heels with jeweled clips on their toes. Beside her Darcy was decked out in a leopard print A-line dress that could have been cut from the same fabric as Nat’s belt and shoes. It had sweet cap sleeves and a bold red belt. Bright red ruffles from her petticoat peeked out from beneath the hem, and she wore matching red heels. Both women were carrying milkshakes.

“Clint and Maria?” Pepper asked as they approached, sliding close enough to Tony that she could lean into his side. “They’ve been together for years.” She took a pointed sip from her banana shake, looking everywhere except at her lover’s face.

“At least five,” Natasha agreed, winding an arm around Darcy’s waist and leaning over to steal a sip of her strawberry shake. “They had a fake marriage mission in Auckland. Fought like cats and dogs the whole time. It made Fury so mad that he put them both on two weeks leave when they got back.”

Snuggling closer to her, Darcy smiled her most encouraging smile. “Oh? Doesn’t sound like a happy start to a relationship.” 

Tony was starting to look suspicious, his eyes traveling from Nat to Darcy to Pepper.

“Don’t be so sure,” Natasha continued. “They were gone for a month. When we finally tracked them down in Monaco they were shacking up in an arms dealer’s private safehouse working their way through his stores of champagne and canned whipped cream.”

While everyone laughed, Tony’s face grew sour.

“You’re all fucking with me,” he whined, pouting. “Did Hill agree to turn up with him for a prank? Whose date is she really? Darcy, you did agree to come with Steve, right?”

Incredulous, Darcy laughed. She turned to Pepper and took a deep breath. “I can’t do it anymore. It’s so funny, but it’s starting to border on cruel and sad. How can anyone’s radar be that off?” Still laughing she held her shake out to Steve who took it with a solemn nod and planted a big, lipstick-stained kiss right on Natasha’s cheek. “Let’s dance before he makes this worse.” The two of them sauntered down to the dance floor, holding hands the entire way.


End file.
